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BRIGHT  LEGACY 

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JONATHAN  BROWN  BRIGHT 
of  Walthaa,  MunchoMCt*.  b  to  be  expended  for  booke 
for  the  CoU^  Lihimrf.   The  other  half  of  the  income 
is  deroted  to  tchdnnhlM  in  Hnnmrd  Unirertitjr  for  the 
benefit  of  deeceadnnte  of 

HINRY  BRIGHT,  JR., 
who  died  nt  Wntettown.  Mnaenchaeette,  in  1686.  In  the 
nheence  of  tnch  detcendnntt,  other  penone  are  eUgible 
to  the  tcholanhipe.  The  will  reqnirei  that  thb  annonnce- 
aeat  thall  be  aade  in  ererj  book  added  to  the  Ubimrjr 
•ader  its  prorleloM. 


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New^  England  Magazine 


An  Illustrated  Monthly 


New  Series,  Vol.    29 


September^  190;  February^  1904 


Boston,  Mass. 
America  Company,  Publisher* 
7  /    238  Tremont  Street 


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its  /os'o^r'  /D 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress  in  the  year  1903,  by 

AMERICA  COMPANY, 
in  the  office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington. 


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INDEX 

TO 

THE  NEW  ENGLAND  MAGAZINE 

VOLUME  XXIX  September,  1903— March,  1904 


According  to  Counsel.    A  Story Emilia  Elliott 289 

America's  First  Poet:  Philip  Freneau    ....  Annie  Russell  Marble 421 

American  Democracy,  The  Founder  of    .     .    .    .  J.  M,  Mackaye 73 

American  Labor,  Changed  Status  of Day  Allen  Willey 24 

American  Park  Systems,  Recent  Developments  in  Frederick  JV.  Coburn 661 

Ancient  and  Honourable  Artillery  Company    .    .  Arthur  T,  LoveU 137 

Anniversary  Day,  The  Great Edward  Everett  Hale,  D.D,    .    .  621 

Arctic  Circle,  In  a  Motor  Car  to  the Charles  /.  Glidden 603 

Arnold,  Benedict,  Should  We  Despise?    .    .    .    .  E,  L,  Morris 638 

Athenaeum,  Boston Augusta  W.  Kellogg 167 

Barye  Bronzes,  The  Remarkable Randolph  I,  Geare 539 

Bayreuth,  A  French  . Florence  Sampson 33 

Black  Fan,  The.'  A  Story Ernest  GlanviUe 714 

Bookstore,  The  Old  Comer 303 

Boston  Athenaeum,  The Augusta  IV.  Kellogg 167 

Bronzes,  The  Remarkable  Barye Randolph  /.  Geare 539 

Carrara  of  America,  The Orin  Edson  Crooktr 97 

Changed  Status  of  American  Labor,  The.    .    .    .  Day  Allen    Willey 24 

Christmas  at  Cape  Sabine Lieut.  R.  E.  Peary 533 

Christmas,  The  Great  Anniversary  Day  ....  Edward  Everett  Hale,  D.D.    .    .  621 

Christmas  in  New  England,  The  Ups  and  Downs  of  Abram  English  Brown 479 

Clergyman's  Profession,  Some  Side-Lights  of  the  Graham  Mac 519 

Conductor  Pat  Francis.    A  Story Frank  H.  Spearman 253 

Constitution  of  New  Hampshire,  The Frederick  A.  Wood iii 

Comer  Bookstore,  The  Old 303 

Cough  in  Lower  Seven,  The.    A  Story  ....  Frank  H.  Spearman 415 

Dematerialized  Scoop,  A.     A  Story William  Forster  Brown      ....  229 

Democracy,  The  Founder  of  American    .    .    .    .  J.  M.  Mackaye 73 

Democracy,  A  Plea  for:  The  Drift  Toward  Despo- 
tism       Harvey  N.  Shepard  .......  587 

Detroit,  Michigan Helen  E.  Keep 195 

Drift  Toward  Despotism,  The:  A  Plea  for  Democ- 
racy       Harvey  N.  Shepard 587 

English  Sparrow  in  New  England,  The    ....  Fletcher  Osgood 317 

Every  Woman  a  Cook Zitella  Cocke 217 

Father  of  James  Abbot  McNeil  Whistler  ....  Gardner  C.  Teall 235 

Fireside  Industries,  Revival  of Katherine  Louise  Smith    ....  442 

Flaw  in  the  Title,  A.    A  Story Elliot  Walker 52 

For  the  Resurrection.    A  Story Dora  Loomis  Hastings 84 

Founder  of  American  Democracy,  The    ..../.  M.  Mackaye 73 


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INDEX 

French  Bayreuth,  A Florence  Sampson 33 

Frcneau,  Philip:  America's  First  Poet    ....    Annie  Russell  Marble 421 

From  the  Heart  of  a  Maid.    A  Story Edith  Richmond  Blanchard  .    .    .  490 

Geographies  of  Our  Forefathers,  The Clifton  Johnson 61 

Gift-Making Mrs,  James  Farley  Cox    ....  655 

Grant  Family,  The  Women  of  the Olive  Lee 435 

Graphite  Mine,  The  Oldest  Living George  H.  Haynes 340 

Great  Anniversary  Day,  The Edward  Everett  Hale,  D.D.    .    .  621 

Greyhound  of  the  Sea,  A.      A  Story C  Z.  Hartman 749 

Ha'nt  at  the  Old  Ladies'  Home,  The.    A  Story  .    .    Ellen  Paine  Huling 450 

Her  Love  and  Its  Memories.    A  Story  ....    Sarah  Endicott  Ober 386 

Historical  Snow  Storm,  An Amy  Woods 754 

Horsemanship,  The  President's  (Roosevelt).    .    .    Elmer  E.   Paine 597 

Humphreys,  David:  His  services  to  American  Free-     •    ^ 

dom  and  Industry Annie  Russell  Marble 690 

In  a  Strange  Land.    A  Story . Emilia  Elliott 186 

Indian  Com,  Mondamin,  the  Spirit  of    ...    .    Helen  W,  Davenport 239 

Industries,  Revival  of  Fireside Katherine  Louise  Smith  ....  442 

Immigration WinHeld  S.  Alcott 404 

Immigration   from  Abroad  into  Massachusetts:  A  !     ! 

Negative  View Philip  Edmund  Sherman  ....  671 

Labor,  Changed  Status  of  American Day  Allen    WiUey ^^^^Hf^^ 

Light  for  the  World,  New,  A George  Ethelbert  Walsh    ....  247 

Lowell,  Mass.,  Explosion  and  Other  New  England 

Disasters 3 

Macomber's,  Miss  Mary  L.,  Paintings William  Howe  Downes 276 

Marble  Industry  in  New  England,  The    ....    Orin  Edson  Crooker 97 

Mayor  of  Switchburg,  The.    A  Story Lewis  E.  MacBrayne 514 

Man,  A,  A  Maid  and  A  Motor.    A  Story  ....    Charles  Battell  Loomis 557 

Men  and  Events 129,  265;  335,  527 

Miss  Barber's  Nephew.    A  Story Elsie  Carmichael 611 

Mondamin,  The  Spirit  of  Indian  Com Helen  W.  Davenport 239 

Money,  Paper,  in  the  New  England  Colonies    .    .    Frederic  Austin  Ogg 772 

More  Quaint  Readers  in  the  Old-Time  School .    .    Clifton  Johnson 626 

Museum,  The  United  States  National Randolph  I.  Geare 496 

My  Experiences  Photographing  the  Negro  in  the     *  I  •  (     .  "^   ^! 

South John  H.  Tarbell    . 463 

National  Museum,  The  United  States    ....    Randolph  /.  Geare 496 

Neighborhood  Sketches.    I-III Henry  A  Shute 547 

Neighborhood  Sketches.     IV- VI Henry  A.  Shute 704 

New  England  Colonies,  Paper  Money  in  the    .    .    Frederic  Austin  Ogg 772 

New  England  Disasters,   Recent 3 

New  England,  The  English  Sparrow  in    ...    .    Fletcher  Osgood 317 

New  England  Idol,  A.    A  Story Eleanor  H,  Porter 17 

New  England,  The  Pole  in Edward  Kirk  Titus 162 

New  England,  Ups  and  Downs  of  Christmas  in    .    Abram  English  Brown 479 

Newfoundland   of   To-Day,    The Day  Allen  Willey 762 

New  Hampshire  Constitution,  The Frederick  A,  Wood ill 

New  Light  for  the  World,  A George  Ethelbert  Walsh    ....  247 

Nightman's   Story,   The.     A   Story Frank  H.  Spearman 740 

Old  Comer  Bookstore,  The 303 

Operator's  Story,  The.     A  Story Frank  H.  Spearman 357 

Orange,  France:  A  French  Bayreuth Florence  Sampson 33 


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INDEX  ^  ^ 

Our  New  Secretary  of  War,  William  H.  Taft 371 

Paper  Money  in  the  New  England  Colonies    .    .    Frederic  Austin  Ogg. 772 

Park  Systems,  Recent  Developments  in  American.    Frederick  IV.  Cobum 661 

Photographing  the  Negro  in  the  South,  My  Experi- 
ences    John  H.  Tarbell 4^3 

Pole  in  the  Land  of  the  Puritan,  The Edward  Kirk  Titus 162 

President's  Horsemanship,  The Elmer  E.  Paine 597 

Radium,  A  New  Light  for  the  World    ....    George  Ethelbert  Walsh    ....  347 

Readers  Our  Grandparents  Used,  The    ....    Clifton  Johnson 376 

Readers  of  the  Old-Time  School,  More  Quaint    .    Clifton  Johnson ^6 

Recent  Developments  in  American  Park  Systems.    Frederick  W.  Cobum 661 

Remarkable  Barye  Bronzes,  The Randolph  L  Geare 539 

Return  of  the  British  to  Boston  In  1903,  The  .    .    Arthur  T.  LoveU 137 

Revival  or  Fireside  Industries,  The Katherine  Louise  Smith  ....  442 

Sabine,  Christmas  at  Cape I.ieut,  R.  E.  Peary 533 

Saving  of  the  Choir,  The.    A  Story Richard    Bradford 578 

Should  We  Despise  Benedict  Arnold?    ....£.  L.  Morris 638 

Shute,  Judge 546 

Snow  Storm,  An  Historical Amy  Woods 754 

Some  Side-Lights  of  the  Qergyman's  Profession .    Graham  Mac 519 

Sparrow  in  New'  England,  The  English  ....    Fletcher  Osgood 317 

Sun-Dials,  Old  and  New Alice  Morse  Earle 563 

Story  of  Dan,  The.    A  Story Nina  Welles  Tibbot 485 

Taft,  William  H.,  Our  New  Secretary  of  War 371 

'Tale  of   Tantiusques,    The." George  H.  Haynes 340 

Thomaston,  Maine,  The  Home  of  Knox  ....    Mary  Stoyell  Stimpson 730 

To  the  Arctic  Circle  in  a  Motor  Car Charles  /.  Glidden 603 

Uncle  Jacob.     A  Story Elliot  Walker 157 

Unforgotten    Whittier,  The John  Wright  Buckham 44 

United  btates  National  Museum,  The    ....    Randolph  /.  Geare 496 

Ups  and  Downs  of  Christmas  in  New  England    .    Abram  English  Brown 479 

Valley  of  Refuge,  The.    A  Story Agnes  Louise  Provost 325 

Voice  in  the  Night,  A.    A  Story Eleanor  C.  Reed 682 

War,  Our  New  Secretary  of,  William  H.  Taft 371 

Webster  Curse,  The.     A   Story Harriet  A,  Nash 121 

When  Grace  Was  Given.    A  Story George  Austin  Barnes 91 

Wheeler's  Hired  Man.    A  Story EUiot  Walker 648 

Whistler's  Father Gardner  C.  Teall 235 

Whittier,   The  Unforgotten John  Wright  Buckham 44 

Whom  God  Hath  Joined.    A  Story Georg  Schock 455 

Wise,  John,  The  Founder  of  American  Democracy    /.  M.  MacKaye 73 

Woman  a  Cook,  Every Zitella  Cocke 217 

Women  of  the  Grant  Family,  The Olive   L^e 435 


POETRY 


Alchemy Charlotte  Becker 72 

Claim,    A Cora  Paxton  Hungerford  ....  no 

Crowning  Touch,  The Eugene  C.  Dolson 607 

Crusaders'  Hymn,  The Mary  L^rd 658 

Garden  Near  Bagdad,  A Charles  Hanson  Towne 356 

Ground  Juniper John  Elliott  Bowman 316 

Hero,  A Clarence  H.  Umer 728 


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INDEX 

Hunting  the  Swamp-Fox Zitella  Cocke 608 

Imperial  Autumn Charles  Hanson  Towne ^28 

In  After  Years Clarence  H,  Umer 194 

In  Winter Clarence  H,  Umer 636 

Minot's    Ledge Edwin  L,  Sabin 16 

Refuge,  The Mary  White  Morton 484 

Return  of  the  Cattle  in  September,  The     ....  Elisa  Boyle  O'Reilly     .....  32 

September       Philip  Becker  Goetz 51 

Sceptic,  The Edwin  Carlile  Litsey 334 

Vanished  Star,  A Eugene  C,  Dolson 681 

Vox  Humana Charlotte  Becker 556 

Whittier  Poem,  An  Unknown,  I John  G.  Whittier 273 

Whittier  Poem,  An  Unpublished,  II John  G.  Whittier 783 

With  A  Pillow Agnes  Lee 288 

Witness  to  the  Truth,  A Samuel    Valentine   Cole    ....  583 


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The 
New  England  Magazine 


New  Series 

SEPTEMBER.  190) 

VOL.  XXIX  NO.  1 

The  Lowell  Explosion  and  Other 
New  England  Disasters 


\'^' 


AT  nine  o'clock  on  the  morn- 
ing oi  July  29,  a  district  of 
L  a  few  acres  area  in  the  town 
of  Tewksbury,  just  south 
of  Lowell,  bore  its  usual  workday  as- 
pect. The  day  w-as  fair  and  moder- 
ately warm.  In  the  bend  of  the  Con- 
cord River,  which  s^veeps  by  this  bit 
of  lo^v  land  on  the  north  and  west,  five 
boys  were  in  swimming.  To  the  east 
and  south  were  some  scores  of  small 
houses  from  which  the  men  had  gone 
out  to  work,  leaving  them  mainly  ten- 
anted by  women  and  children.  Two 
buildings  stood  on  the  swampy  land 
in  the  bend  of  the  river,  one-story 
brick  structures  without  windows. 
Several  men  had  been  busy  for  some 
minutes  bringing  boxes  out  of  one  of 
these  buildings  and  piling  them  on  a 
wagon,  while  a  woman  standing  near 
watched  them.    On  the  other  side  of 


the  river  a  train  was  just  pulling  out 
of  the  station. 

At  six  minutes  past  nine  a  man  ran 
out  of  the  small  brick  building,  fol- 
lowed by  a  little  thread  of  smoke. 
Tlien  came  a  deafening  roar,  followed 
by  a  long  roll  like  that  of  a  thunder 
clap.  Passengers  in  the  train  across 
the  river  saw  a  huge  cloud  of  dust  rise 
from  the  swampy  ground.  In  the 
same  instant  a  score  of  the  small 
houses  lay,  flat  heaps  of  tangled  boards 
and  timbers,  on  the  ground.  Twenty 
persons,  including  four  of  the  five 
boys  splashing  in  the  river,  were  killed 
outright,  or  so  badly  injured  that  they 
died  soc^n  after.  And  while  the  people 
on  the  train  saw  this  magical  trans- 
formation, buildings  were  shaken  and 
windows  broken  in  hundreds  of  places 
within  a  radius  of  fifteen  miles. 
People  as  far   away   as    Dedham    on 


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The  Lowell  Disaster— The  Riggs  House,  completely  demolished 


the  south  and  the  mid-New  Hamp- 
shire towns  on  the  north,  felt  the 
shock  and  guessed  at  reckless  blasts 
or  earthquakes.  From  the  heaps  of 
mangled  rubbish  that  bordered  the 
area  of  swampy  ground  in  the  Con- 
cord River  bend,  the  dust  of  broken 
plaster  rose  in  the  air,  together  with 
smoke  and  flame  and  the  cries  of 
wounded  and  frightened  human  beings. 
This  sudden  and  terrible  change  of 
scene  was  the  work  of  about  one  thou- 
sand pounds  of  dynamite  and  a  large 
but  unknown  quantity  of  powder, 
which  latter  contributed  the  roll  to  the 
roar  of  the  explosion.  What  caused 
the  explosion  is  not  yet  known,  and 
probably  never  will  be,  within  the 
4 


limit  of  error  inevitable  even  to  the 
shrewdest  guessers.  It  occurred  in  a 
magazine  occupied  jointly  by  the 
United  States  Cartridge  Company, 
whose  factory  is  in  Lowell,  and  the 
American  Powder  Company,  m  which 
the  latter  had  dynamite  stored. 

Some  two  weeks  before  the  disaster, 
officers  of  the  Cartridge  Company 
found  that  nitro-glycerine  had  leaked 
on  the  floor  from  the  boxes  of  dyna- 
mite. The  Powder  Company  was 
notified,  and  arrangements  were  made 
for  the  removal  of  the  explosives  from 
the  building,  while  the  old  floor  was 
being  washed  with  caustic  potash  and 
a  new  one  laid  over  it.  The  workmen 
of  the   Cartridge   Company   had   re 


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THE    LOWELL   EXPLOSION 


moved  a  part  of  the  powder,  and  it 
stood  piled  on  a  wagon  near  by  when 
the  magazine  blew  up.  It  is  reported 
that  there  were  grains  of  powder  on 
the  floor  of  the  magazine  during  the 
removal.  One  of  the  survivors  reports 
that  the  foreman,  Goodwin,  poured  a 
liquid  on  the  floor  that  made  the 
boards  smoke,  but  Goodwin  denies 
this  and  declares  he  did  nothing  that 
could  have  caused  the  explosion,  and 
there,  for  the  pubHc,  the  matter  rests. 
It  seems  probable  that  the  trouble 
started  in  the  Cartridge  Company's 
side  of  the  magazine,  w'hich  was  sepa- 
rated from  the  stored  dynamite  by  a 
partition  which  did  not  extend  down 
to  the  floor.  An  explosion  here 
would  have  detonated  the  dynamite. 
Tlie  powder  loaded  on  the  wagon 
apparently    exploded    from    the    first 


shock,  and  the  explosion  of  the  second 
magazine,  which  was  leased  by  the 
Dupont  Powder  Company,  must  have 
followed  almost  instantaneously. 

The  ruin  caused  by  theaccidentwas 
appalling  in  its  perfection.  Hardly  a 
scrap  of  material  wais  left  of  either 
magazine.  The  tearing  of  the  explo- 
sive gases  hollow^ed  out  great  cavities 
w^here  the  buildings  had  stood,  and 
these  slowly  filled  with  water  from  the 
wet  soil  about.  Some,  of  the  ruined 
dwelling-houses  w^ere  mere  flat  heaps 
of  rubbish ;  many  were  only  partly  de- 
molished, while  still  others  suffered 
chiefly  by  the  falling  of  plaster,  break- 
ing of  glass  and  the  displacement  of 
furniture,  or  the  fires  from  overturned 
stoves  which  quickly  followed. 

In  Lowell  the  noise  of  the  explo- 
sion and  the  wild  reports  of  frightened 


The  Lowell  Disaster  — Home  of  Edward  burgess,  one-eighih  mile  away,  com- 
pletely RUINED 


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THE    LOWELL   EXPLOSION 


people  who  ran  through  the  streets 
caused  almost  a  panic.  Thousands 
hurried  to  the  stricken  district,  a  few- 
being  cool  enough  to  begin  at  once 
the  work  of  rescuing  those  impris- 
oned in  the  nuns.  Physicians  hurrie<l 
out  from  the  city,  and  as  fast  as  the 
wounded  were  rescued  they  were  sent 
to  St.  John's  Hospital  in  all  sorts  of 
improvised  ambulances.  To  add  to 
the  confusion  of  the  terror,  fire  en- 
gines rattled  in,  but  these,  fortu- 
nately, soon  prevented  that  worst  of 
all  horrors,  the  burning  of  those  in- 
jured and  imprisoned  in  the  wreckage. 

Lowell  will  not  soon  forget  the  hor- 
rors of  that  work  of  rescue,  and  the 
grewsome  task  of  searching  for  traces 
of  those  whose  bodies  had  utterly  dis- 
appeared. Three  acres  of  ground 
were  entirely  laid  waste,  the  trees  and 
bushes  in  a  considerable  radius  being 
torn  and  blasted  as  by  a  breath  from 
a  huge  furnace.  The  moist  ground 
wus  trampled  into  mud  under  the  feet 
of  the  crowds  of  spectators  and  res- 
cuers. Men,  women  and  children, 
badly  frightened,  as  they  had  good 
cause  to  be,  ran  about,  searching  for 
friends  and  neighbors.  Some  of  the 
dead  bodies  dug  out  of  the  ruins  were 
frightfully  mangled,  while  the  suflFer- 
ings  of  the  more  seriously  injured 
were  hardly  less  affecting.  Of  the 
scores  who  were  mot  so  severely  hurt, 
many  looked  like  scarecrows  from 
bruises,  grime  and  torn  clothing. 

The  region  of  the  explosion  was  at 
once  put  under  a  military  guard,  and, 
for  five  days  after,  it  was  the  focus  for 
crowds  of  sightseers  who  watched 
owners  and  tenants  as  they  searched 
the  ruins  of  their  houses.  Besides 
these,  officers  of  the  state  and  Lowell 
police  were  making  a  careful  search 


of  the  whole  area  for  clues  to  those 
who  could  not  be  found.  And  ghastly 
traces  they  came  upon, — an  eye,  a 
hand,  a  shoulder-blade,  were  among 
the  dreadful  relics  gathered.  The  river 
bed  was  dragged,  and  the  hollows 
made  on  the  sites  of  the  magazines 
were  pumped  clear  of  water.  Every 
bit  of  clothing,  every  button,  was 
saved  for  the  scrutiny  of  those  who 
sought  missing  friends;  every  bit  of 
flesh  and  bone  was  laid  beifore  the 
doctors,  who  tried  to  decide  which 
might  be  animal  and  which  human, 
and  not  until  every  particle  had  been 
picked  up  and  passed  upon,  was  the 
guard  of  militiamen  removed. 

In  comparison  with  the  heavy  loss 
of  life,  the  destruction  of  property  was 
trivial,  not  exceeding  $loo,ooo,  within 
the  direct  field  of  the  explosion.  The 
ruined  and  damaged  houses  were 
mostly  occupied  by  French  mill  peo- 
ple, to  whom,  hcm^ever,  the  destruc- 
tion of  their  property  was  severe  al- 
most in  proportion  to  its  smallness. 
Speedy  steps  were  taken  to  help  the 
sufferers;  nearly  $10,000  in  cash  was 
contributed  within  a  few  days,  and  it 
is  pleasant  to  record  that  the  crowd  of 
sight-seers  who  swarmed  to  the  ruins 
on  the  following  Sunday  gave  about 
$i\.ooo  of  this  amount. 

Some  interesting  questions  of  pri- 
vate and  public  responsibility,  and 
legal  liability  are  raised  by  the  ex- 
plosion. Many  suits  for  damages 
have  been  threatened,  and  for  months 
to  come  the  matter  is  likely  to  be 
threshed  out  in  the  courts.  That  the 
Cartridge  Company  is  liable  for  dam- 
age caused  by  the  culpable  careless- 
ness of  its  employees,  seems  clear.  The 
facts,  however,  may  not  be  easy  to 
prove,  beyond   the   prima  facie   case 


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8 


THE    LOWELL   EXPLOSION 


furnished  by  the  bare  truth  that  the  ex- 
plosion occurred.  The  responsibiHty 
of  public  officials  has  also  to  be 
weighed.  The  magazines  were  built 
some  thirty  years  ago,  and  at  that  tim3 
stood  in  an  isolated  region.  Just  what 
should  have  been  done  when  houses 
were  built  near  them  is  a  maJtter  of 
procedure.  Clearly  the  magazines 
should  not  have  been  filled  with 
large  quantities  of    high    explosives 


when  just  such  ruin  as  occurred  was 
always  a  possibility.  There  ought  to 
have  been,  and  there  must  now  be 
provided,  some  way  of  laying  on 
public  officials  the  duty  of  pre- 
venting such  calamities.  The  only 
safe  assumption  is  that  sooner  rr 
later  every  magazine  is  bound 
to  explode,  and  must  therefore 
be  kept  a  safe  distance  from  dwelHng 
houses  and  other  buildings. 


The  Lowell  Disaster  — Mr.  and  Mrs.  Goodreau,  in  Front  of  the  Ruins  of  Their 
Home.    The  Former  had  just  left  the  House  when  the  Explosion  came 


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The  Lowell  Disaster - 


-A  Kitchen  which  had  been  Vacant  for  only  a  Few 
Minutes  before  the  Explosion 


THE  SUBWAY   DISASTER   OF   MARCH   4,    1897 


The  Tewksbiiry  disaster  at  once  re 
calls  the  gas  explosion  which  occurred 
at  the  junction  of  Boylston  and 
Tremont  streets,  in  Boston,  on  March 
4.  1897.  The  results  here  were  again 
a  demonstration  of  mingled  public 
arKl  private  neglect.  At  the  time  of 
the  disaster,  the  roof  of  the  subway 
at  the  Boylston-Tremont  corner  had 
been  completed.  The  car-tracks 
at  the  junction  of  the  two  streets 
were  supported  on  timbers  cov- 
ered with  planking,  while  beneath 
was  a  considerable  unfilled  space, 
in  which  hung  gas  mains  and 
sewer  pipes,  supported  from  the 
timbers  above.  For  more  than  two 
months  previous,  gas  had  been  escap- 


ing from  the  mains,  and  a  complaint 
was  made  to  the  Gas  Company  as  far 
back  as  the  28th  of  the  preceding  De- 
cember. The  final  explosion  occurred 
at  11.46  in  the  forenoon,  the  time  be- 
ing shown  by  clocks  in  nearby  build- 
ings stopped  by  the  shock. 

At  that  time  three  cars  were  near 
the  intersection  of  the  streets,  a 
Huntington  Avenue  car  bound  north, 
a  Back  Bay  car  going  south,  and  a 
Mount  Auburn  car  going  east  toward 
Washington  Street.  This  latter  car, 
when  just  over  the  track  crossings, 
apparently  ignited  the  mixture  of  air 
and  gas  with  which  the  great  cavity 
below  was  filled,  and  the  explosion 
came  with  a  burst   of   flames   and   a 


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Explosion  in  the  Boston  Subway  at  Corner  of  Tremont  and  Boylston  Streets 


shock  which  broke  the  windows  of 
every  building  for  some  distance 
about.  The  wrecked  Mount  Auburn 
car  was  at  once  enveloped  in  flames ; 
the  conductor  of  the  Back  Bay 
car,  on  the  back  platform,  was 
instantly  killed.  The  horses  draw- 
ing this  car  were  also  killed,  one 
of  them  being-  blown  some  dis- 
tance. A  cat,  jusit  then  passinp^  the 
comer,  was  wrecked.  Bystanders 
saw  the  driver  fall  into  the  wreckage, 
which  slipped  into  the  gap  made  by 
the  explosion.  One  of  the  two  women 
passengers  was  killed  outright,  and 
the  other  was  rescued,  only  to  die 
next  day  of  her  injuries.  The  horse 
was  blown  free  of  the  vehicle  and 
killeid.  In  all  six  persons  were  killed, 
and  a/t  least  sixty  were  injured  more 
or  less  seriously.  The  buildings  all 
about  were  severely  shaken,  and  their 
occupants  were  hurt  by  broken  glass 

10 


and  in  other  ways.  A  dentist  in  the 
}Iotel  Pelham,  on  the  southwest 
corner,  was  blown  away  from  the 
patient  on  whom  he  was  operating, 
and  thrown  across  the  room.  The 
window  of  a  je\veller's  shop,  in  the 
same  building,  was  broken  out,  and 
hundreds  of  dollars*  worth  of  gems 
were  scattered  over  the  street.  Labo- 
rious inquiries,  official  and  otherwise, 
were  followed  by  long-drawn  suits  in 
the  courts,  with  the  not  uncommon 
failure  to  draw  clearly  the  line  of  re- 
sponsibility for  the  disaster.  The  bare, 
physical  fact  seemed  to  be  that  there 
was  an  old  break  in  the  six-inch  gas 
main  along  the  south  side  of  Boylston 
Street,  from  which  the  gas  might  have 
accumulated  in  the  space  under  the 
planking.  The  officials  of  the  Gas 
Company  had  received  complaints  of 
escaping  gas  for  weeks  previous,  bul 
the  calamity,  which  apparently  might 


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NEW   ENGLAND   DISASTERS  11 


have  been  avoided,  was  allowed  to 
befall.  The  property  loss  from  this  ex- 
plosion was  about  $40,000,  a  quarter 
01  this  being  on  broken  windows. 

Two  other  gas  explosions  occurred 
in  Boston  in  1875,  o"e  of  them  pre- 
senting exactly  the  same  features  as 
that  over  the  subway.    On  May  26,  a 
building  on  the  corner  of  Washington 
and   Lagrange  streets   was   wreckeil, 
supposedly  by  g3s.    Five  persons  were 
instantly  killed  and  eighteen  were  hurt. 
The  nature  of  the  wreck  made  it  im-     = 
possible  to  determine  the  cause,  as  be-     M 
tween  illuminating  gas,  and  the  car-     i 
bonic  acid  used  in  a  drug  store  in  the     -> 
lower  story  of  the  building.     Tlie  ef-     5 
feet  of  the  shock  was  to  drive  out  the     c 
lower  walls.     The    inner    supporting     I 
columns  then  snapped,  and  the  whole     | 
upper  part  of  the  building  collapsed     ^ 
with  a  crash.  § 

The  other  accident,  on  the  twenty-  c 
second  of  December,  was  known  to  5 
be  due  to  the  ignition,  from  some  un-  m 
known  cause,  of  lighting  gas,  which  ^ 
leaked  from  a  pipe  leading  into  the  "^ 
grain  store  of  Sumner,  Crosby  and  ; 
Son,  on  Federal  Street.  « 

Four  persons  were  killed  and  nine- 
teen injured  by  this  explosion,  which 
was  so  violent  that  it  blew  up  one 
hundred  and  fifty  feet  of  sidewalk  on 
the  west  side  of  Federal  Street  bridge 
in  South  Boston,  and  threw  a  consid- 
erable length  of  it  over  the  bridge  into 
the  water.  The  sidewalk  grade  here 
had  been  changed  and  the  new  walk 
laid  on  timbers,  with  a  space  of  about 
dghteen  feet  between  it  and  the  old 
grade,  where  the  gas  had  collected. 


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12 


NEW   ENGLAND   DISASTERS 


TWO    RECENT  TORNADOES 


In  the  way  of  natural  disasters  New 
England  can  recall  two  tornadoes 
which  are  notable,  not  only  for  their 
destruction  of  life  and  property,  but 
for  the  comparative  and  fortunate 
rarity  of  such  disturbances  in  this 
part  of  the  country.  The  most  recent 
of  these  wa's  the  storm  which  swept 
the  New  England  coast  on  July  4, 
1898,  causing  considerable  minor 
damage  to  property  in  many  coast 
towns,  and  developing  a  genuine 
tornado  at  Hampton  Beach,  New 
Hampshire.  The  wind  whirl  struck  the 
beach  about  half  a  mile  north  of  Whit- 
tier's  hotel,  and  cut  a  swath  a  hundred 
yards  wide  to  the  westward,  and  then 
passed  out  to  sea.  As  it  came  in  over 
the  water,  those  on  the  beach  saw  a 
yacht,  anchored  about  a  mile  out,  dis- 


appear in  its  dark  folds.  Falling  upon 
the  beach,  it  crushed  flat  nearly  a  score 
of  small  cottages,  rolled  people  over 
and  over  along  the  sand,  and  did  its 
worst  work  in  wrecking  the  old  skat- 
ing rink.  This  was  a  frame  building, 
fifty  by  one  hundred  feet,  used  that 
day  for  an  electrical  spectacle  called, 
*'The  Sinking  of  the  Maine," — a  title 
w^hose  familiar  strangeness  has  only 
five  years  later  a  strange  flavor  of  the 
forgotten  excitement  of  the  Spanish 
War.  In  the  wrecking  of  this  build- 
ing, the  roof  fell  upon  some  three 
hundred  persons,  instantly  killing 
three  of  them  and  seriously  injuring 
at  least  a  hundred  others.  The  yacht 
seen  from  shore  on  the  approach  of 
the  storm  was  capsized,  and  four  of 
its  pleasure  passengers  were  drowned. 


Hampton  Tornado  —The  Skating  Rink  in  which  were  300  People 

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NEW  ENGLAND   DISASTERS 


13 


while  others  were  resuscitated  only  by 
heroic  labors  on  the  part  of  rescuers. 
Several  other  boats  were  capsized. 
The  death  list  numbered  eight  in  all. 
The  damage  to  property  was  not 
great  in  terms  of  dollars,  owing  to  the 
slight  character  of  most  of  the 
wrecked  buildings.  Some  of  the  larger 
hotels  lost  piazzas  and  blinds,  with  no 
substantial  damage.  On  the  same  day, 


just  before  six  o'clock,  another  small 
tornado  developed  in  the  cyclonic 
area,  which  included  the  whole  New 
England  coast,  capsized  the  small  ex- 
cursion steamer  "Surf  City,"  just  as 
she  was  leaving  Salem  Willows,  with 
forty  passengers  aboard;  eight  of 
these  were  drowned,  most  of  them 
being  women  and  children,  shut  in 
the  cabin. 


THE   SOUTH    LAWRENX^E   CYCLONE 


When  the  lusty,  infant  city  of  Law- 
rence, now  one  of  the  big  mill  centres 
of  the  Merrimac  Valley,  was  be- 
ginning its  winning  fight  for  a  place 
:n  the  fore  in  the  world  of  manufac- 
tures, there  came  a  calamity  which, 
for  the  moment,  struck  a  blow  at  its 
prosperity.  It  was  just  seven  years 
after  the  incorporation  of  Lawrence 
as  a  city  that  the  Pemberton  Mills, 
then  housing  one  of  the  city's  chief 
industries,  collapsed  without  warning, 
carrying  down  to  death  and  horrible 
injuries  scores  of  its  hundreds  of  em- 
ployees. That  any  escaped  seems  a 
miracle.  Nevertheless,  the  miraculous 
happened,  and  from  the  wreck 
emerged  heroes  who  battled  with 
crushing  timbers  and  scorching  flames 
for  the  lives  of  fellow  workmen.  How 
the  people  of  Lawrence  and  all  the 
country  came  to  the  relief  of  the 
stricken,  how  the  city  recovered  grad- 
ually from  its  fearful  straits,  is  not  a 
tale  for  this  time. 

Instead,  another  chapter  of  the 
city^s  history  claims  the  attention  of 
the  moment,  for  one  more  catastro- 
phe, as  if  the  first  were  not  enough, 
brought  additional  oppression,  but  to 
a  less  extent,  upon  the  city. 


Just  thirty  years  after  the  fall  of  the 
Pemberton  Mills,  and  on  the  twenty- 
sixth  of  Juiy,  1890,  Michael  Higgins, 
a  switchman  employed  by  the  Boston 
&  Maine  Railroad,  was  called  upon  to 
set  a  switch  in  the  course  of  his  duties. 
Suddenly  he  was  hurled  to  the  ground 
by  the  force  of  a  terrible  wind. 
Stunned,  he  lay  without  movement 
upon  the  tracks,  while  the  switch 
house,  hitherto  a  protection,  now  be- 
came by  the  will  of  the  elements  a 
raging,  destructive  demon,  a  sport  of 
the  tempest  to  crush  him  Hfeless,  as  it 
hurled  through  the  air.  He  was  the 
second  of  eight  victims  found  to  have 
been  hurried  to  the  Great  Beyond 
when  the  stunned  and  panic-stricken 
people  of  the  south  side  of  Lawrence, 
returning  to  their  senses,  had  counted 
up  their  fatalities. 

Shortly  after  9  A.  M.  on  that  day, 
persons  in  the  suburbs  of  Lawrence, 
especially  in  North  Andover,  on  look- 
ing toward  South  Lawrence,  noticed 
an  enormous  black,  yet  lurid,  cloud, 
menacing  the  city.  The  wind,  which 
had  been  blowing  from  the  east,  sud- 
denly veered,  and  strong  gusts  came 
from  the  west  bearing  leaves  and  dirt, 
which  were  plastered  upon  houses  and 


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At  the  end  of  Springfield  Street,  showing  House  made  Roofless  and  Turned  Over 


posts  by  a  drivinf^  rain.  Already  the 
cyclone  had  smitten  Lawrence,  and 
before  rebounding  to  the  earth,  as  if 
loath  to  leave  its  sport,  it  wrecked  a 
house  and  several  other  buildings  at 
the  edge  of  North  Andover. 

To  one  who  visited  the  scene  of  the 
disaster  soon  after  its  occurrence,  the 
remembrance  of  the  desolate  streets, 
the  frantic  residents,  whose  uncer- 
tainty in  regard  to  loved  ones  was  yet 
unappeased,  the  fallen  w^oodland  mon- 
archs  of  Union  Park,  riven  and 
twisted,  shorn  of  limbs  and  leaves,  the 
wrecked  homes  of  scores  of  mill  oper- 
atives, was  one  never  to  be  forgotten. 
Heaps  of  kindling  wood,  houses  in- 
verted upon  their  own  cellars,  houses 
with  roof  or  sides  missing,  twisted 
askew  upon  their  foundations,  houses 
tipped  completely  over,  greeted  the 
thousands  of  sight-seers,  who  visited 
the  vicinity  of  Springfield  and  Salem 
streets  during  the  next  few  days. 
14 


Stories  to  fill  a  volume  might  be 
told  of  wonderful  escapes;  how  a 
house  filled  with  a  dozen  inmates  had 
been  utterly  destroyed  with  only  one 
injured  of  all  the  people  who  were  in 
it  at  the  time;  of  freaks  of  the  wind 
which  seized  one  house  and  passed  its 
neighbor  by.  In  one  instance,  a  house 
on  Salem  Street,  sheltering  mother 
and  two  daughters,  was  almost  in- 
verted, so  that  carpets  took  the  place 
of  ceiling.  All  escaped  death  and  the 
mother  was  giving  thanks  for  an- 
other daughter's  absence  only  to  leani 
all  too  soon  that  her  daughter,  on  her 
way  home,  had  been  blown  from  a 
bridge  and  was  fatally  injured. 

Eye  witnesses  speak  of  the  union  of 
three  storms  which  met  over  Law- 
rence on  the  west  side  of  Broadway. 
Thence  the  cyclone,  striking  down- 
ward and  up,  whirling  on  its  devastat- 
ing path,  pursued  a  northeasterly 
course,  cutting  a  swath  about  200  feet 


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NEW  ENGLAND  DISASTERS 


iS 


wide,  and  damaging  almost  every- 
thing in  its  wzy  to  a  greater  or  less  ex- 
tent. The  loss  of  life  was  eight. 
Sixty  or  more  were  injured.  The  loss 
of  property  reached  nearly  $200,000. 
Thirteen   years  have   passed   since 


that  day  and  the  memory  of  it  has 
faded  somewhat  from  the  minds  of 
the  people  of  Lawrence,  but  it  is  to  be 
devoutly  hoped  that  no  more  will  the 
city  be  called  upon  to  cope  with 
troubles  like  that  of  the  past. 


"THE    GREAT   CYCLONE" 


The  "Great  Cyclone,"  which  swept 
through  West  Cambridge,  now 
Arlington,  and  into  Medford,  on  Au^- 
nst  22,  1851,  is  said  to  be  the  first  Nev 
England  tornado  of  which  there  is  ac- 
curate record.  It  was  interesting, 
though  it  caused  only  one  death, 
with  injuries  to  about  twenty  persons. 
Starting  about  5.30  P.  M.  in  Arling- 
ton, near  the  Watertown  line,  its  path 
varied  from  thirty  to  fifty  rods  in 
width,  decreasing  as  it  passed  towards 
Medford.  It  wrecked  the  Lowell 
Railroad  Station  at    that    place,  and 


tossed  a  freight  car  over  the  fence  into 
an  adjoining  field.  It  demolished  a 
school  house,  turning  the  floor,  with 
the  desks  attached  to  it,  upside  down, 
and  carrying  it  some  distance.  Per- 
haps its  queerest  feat  was  the  tearing 
up  of  a  pine  tree,  which  it  drove, 
harpoon-like,  through  the  roof  and 
into  the  intericjr  of  a  dwelling  house. 

The  second  Arlington  tornado  oc- 
curred Sunday  night,  August  27,  1871, 
within  five  days  of  an  exact  twenty 
years  later.  It  did  less  damage  than 
the  earlier  one,  and  caused  no  deaths. 


Springfield  Street,  near  the  Corner  of  Foster,  showing  Houses  completely  de- 
molished, WHILE  others  next  TO  THEM  ARE  UNINJURED 


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Minof  s  Ledge 

By  Edwin  L.  Sabin 


THE  sun  has  risen  calm  and  clear 
Above  each  sparkling  crest — 
At  eve  I  mark  him  disappear 

Red  in  an  angry  west. 
The  waves  with  sullen  bale-fires  glow; 
.  The  petrels  skim  the  brine ; 
Here's  work  ahead,  right  well  I  know, 
Stern  work  for  me  and  mine. 

Adown  the  breeze  there  creeps  a  moan. 

The  moon  has  veiled  her  face. 
How  dark  the  sky  and  sea  have  grow  \ 

All  in  a  moment's  space ! 
And  now  a  line  of  scud  and  spray 

Comes  driving  hard  and  fast ; 
And  like  a  challenge  to  the  fray 


16 

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A  New  England  Idol 

By  Heanor  H.  Porter 


THE  Hapgood  twins  were 
bom  in  the  great  square 
house  that  set  back  from  the 
road  just  on  the  outskirts 
of  Fairtown.  Their  baby  eyes  had 
opened  upon  a  world  of  faded  por- 
traits and  sombre  haircloth  furniture, 
and  their  baby  hands  had  eagerly 
clutched  at  crystal  pendants  on  brass 
candlesticks  gleaming  out  of  the  sa- 
cred darkness  that  enveloped  the  par- 
lor mantel. 

When  older  grown  they  had  played 
dolls  in  the  wonderful  attic,  and  made 
mud  pies  in  the  wilderness  of  a  back 
yard.  The  garden  had  been  a  fairy- 
land of  delight  to  their  toddling  feet, 
and  the  apple  trees  a  fragrant  shelter 
for  their  first  attempts  at  housekeep- 
ing. 

From  babyhood  to  girlhood  the 
charm  of  the  old  place  grew  upon 
them,  so  much  so  that  the  thought  of 
leaving  it  for  homes  of  their  own  be- 
came distasteful  to  them,  and  they 
kx)ked  with  scant  favor  upon  the  oc- 
casional village  youths  who  sauntered 
up  the  path  presumably  on  courtship 
bent. 

The  Rev.  John  Hapgood — a  man 
who  ruled  himself  and  all  about  him 
with  the  iron  rod  of  a  rigid  old-school 
orthodoxy — died  when  the  twins  were 
twenty;  and  the  frail  little  woman 
who,  as  his  wife,  had  for  thirty  years 
lived  and  moved  solely  because  he  ex- 
pected breath  and  motion  of  her,  fol- 
lowed soon    in    his    footsteps.     And 


then  the  twins  were  left  alone  in  the 
great  square  house  on  the  hill. 

Miss  Tabitha  and  Miss  Rachel  were 
not  the  only  children  of  the  family. 
There  had  been  a  son — the  first-born, 
and  four  years  their  senior.  The 
headstrong  boy  and  the  iron  rule  had 
clashed,  and  the  boy,  when  sixteen 
years  old,  had  fled,  leaving  no  trace 
behind  him. 

If  the  Rev.  John  Hapgood  grieved 
for  his  wayward  son  the  members  of 
his  household  knew  it  not,  save  as 
they  might  place  their  own  construc- 
tions on  the  added  sternness  to  his 
eyes  and  the  deepening  lines  about  his 
mouth,  "Paul,"  when  it  designated 
the  graceless  runaway,  was  a  forbid- 
den word  in  the  family,  and  even  the 
Epistles  in  the  sacred  Book,  bearing 
the  prohibited  name,  came  to  be 
avoided  by  the  head  of  the  house  in 
the  daily  readings.  It  was  still  music 
in  the  hearts  of  the  women,  however, 
though  it  never  passed  their  lips ;  and 
when  the  little  mother  lay  dying  she 
remembered  and  spoke  of  her  boy. 
The  habit  of  years  still  fettered  her 
tongue  and  kept  it  from  uttering  his 
name. 

"If — ^he — comes — you  know — if  he 
comes,  be  kind — ^be  good,''  she  mur- 
mured, her  breath  short  and  labored. 
"Don't — ^punish,"  she  whispered — ^he 
was  yet  a  lad  in  her  disordered  vision. 
"Don't  punish — forgive!" 

Years  had  passed  since  then— ryears 
of  peaceful  mornings  and  placid  af- 

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ternoons,  and  Paul  had  never  ap- 
peared. Each  purpling  of  the  lilacs 
in  the  spring  and  reddening  of  the  ap- 
ples in  the  fall  took  on  new  shades  of 
loveliness  in  the  fond  eyes  of  the 
twins,  and  every  blade  of  grass  and 
tiny  shrub  became  sacred  to  them. 

On  the  tenth  of  June,  their  thirty- 
fifth  birthday,  the  place  never  had 
looked  so  lovely.  A  small  table  laid 
with  spotless  linen  and  gleaming  sil- 
ver stood  beneath  the  largest  apple 
tree,  a  mute  witness  that  the  ladies 
were  about  to  celebrate  their  birthday 
— the  tenth  of  June  being  the  only  day 
that  the  solemn  dignity  of  the  dining- 
room  was  deserted  for  the  frivolous 
freedom  of  the  lawn. 

Rachel  came  out  of  the  house  and 
sniffed  the  air  joyfully. 

"Delicious  1"  she  murmured.  "Some- 
how, the  tenth  of  June  is  specially  fine 
every  year." 

In  careful,  uplifted  hands  she  bore 
a  round  frosted  cake,  always  the  chief 
treasure  of  the  birthday  feast.  The 
cake  was  covered  with  the  tiny  colored 
candies  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  a  child. 
Miss  Rachel  always  bought  those  can- 
dies at  the  village  store,  with  the 
apology : 

"I  want  them  for  Tabitha's  birthday 
cake,  you  know.  She  thinks  so  much 
of  pretty  things." 

Tabitha  invariably  made  the  cake 
and  iced  it,  and  as  she  dropped  the  bits 
of  colored  sugar  into  place,  she  would 
explain  to  Huldy,  who  occasionally 
"helped"  in  the  kitchen : 

"I  wouldn't  miss  the  candy  for  the 
world — my  sister  thinks  so  much  of 
itl" 

So  each  deceived  herself  with  this 
pleasant  bit  of  fiction,  and  yet  had 
what  she  herself  most  wanted. 


Rachel  carefully  placed  the  cake  in 
the  centre  of  the  table,  feasted  her 
eyes  on  its  toothsome  loveliness,  then 
turned  and  hurried  back  to  the  house. 
The  door  had  scarcely  shut  bdiind 
her  when  a  small,  ragged  urchin 
darted  in  at  the  street  gate,  snatched 
the  cake,  and,  at  a  sudden  sound  from 
the  house,  dashed  out  of  sight  behind 
a  shrub  close  by. 

The  sound  that  had  frightened  the 
boy  was  the  tapping  of  the  heels  of 
Miss  Tabitha's  shoes  along  the  back 
porch.  The  lady  descended  the  steps, 
crossed  the  lawn  and  placed  a  saucer 
of  pickles  and  a  plate  of  dainty  sand- 
wiches on  the  table. 

"Why,  I  thought  Rachel  brought 
the  cake,"  she  said  aloud.  "It  must 
be  in  the  house;  there's  other  things 
to  get,  anyway.     I'll  go  back." 

Again  the  click  of  the  door  brought 
the  small  boy  close  to  the  table.  Fill- 
ing both  hands  with  sandwiches,  he 
slipped  behind  the  shrub  just  as  the 
ladies  came  out  of  the  house  together. 
Rachel  carried  a  small  tray  laden  with 
sauce  and  tarts;  Tabitha,  one  with 
water  and  steaming  tea.  As  they 
neared  the  table  each  almost  dropped 
her  burden. 

"Why,  Where's  my  cake?" 

"And  my  sandwiches  1" 

"There's  the  plate  it  was  on!" 
Rachel's  voice  was  growing  in  terror. 

"And  mine,  too!"  cried  Tabitha, 
with  distended  eyes  fastened  on  some 
bits  of  bread  and  meat — all  that  the 
small  brown  hands  had  left. 

"It's  burglars — robbers!"  Rachel 
looked  furtively  over  her  shoulder. 

"And  all  your  lovely  cake !"  almost 
sobbed  Tabitha. 

"It — ^it  was  yours,  too,"  said  the 
other  with  a  catch  in  her  voice.    O 


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dear  1  What  can  have  happened  to  it  ? 
I  never  heard  of  such  a  thing — right 
in  broad  daylight !" 

The  sisters  had  long  ago  set  their 
trays  upon  the  ground  and  were  now 
wringing  their  hands  helplessly.  Sud- 
denly a  small  figure  appeared  before 
them  holding  out  four  sadly  crushed 
sandwiches  and  half  of  a  crumbling 
cake. 

"I'm  sorry — ^awful  sorry  1  I  didn't 
think — I  was  so  hungry.  I'm  afraid 
there  ain't  very  much  left,"  he  added, 
with  rueful  eyes  on  the  sandwiches. 

"No,  I  should  say  not  1"  vouchsafed 
Rachel,  her  voice  firm  now  that  the 
size  of  the  "burglar"  was  declared. 
Tabitha  only  gasped. 

The  small  boy  placed  the  food  on 
the  empty  plates,  and  Rachel's  lips 
twitched  as  she  saw  that  he  clumsily 
tried  to  arrange  it  in  an  orderly 
Cushion. 

"There,  ma'am — ^that  looks  pretty 
good!"  he  finally  announced  with 
some  pride. 

Tabitha  made  an  involuntary  ges- 
ture of  aversion.  Rachel  laughed  out- 
right; then  her  face  grew  suddenly 
stem. 

"Boy,  what  do  you  mean  by  such 
actions?"  she  demanded. 

His  eyes  fell,  and  his  cheeks  showed 
red  through  the  tan. 

"I  was  hungry." 

"But  didn't  you  know  it  was  steal- 
ing?" she  asked,  her  face  softening. 

"I  didn't  stop  to  think— it  looked 
so  good  I  couldn't  help  takin'  it."  He 
dug  his  bare  toes  into  the  grass  for  a 
moment  in  silence,  then  he  raised  his 
head  with  a  jerk  and  stood  squarely 
on  both  feet.  "I  hain't  got  any  money, 
but  I'll  work  to  pay  for  it — ^bringin' 
wood  in,  or  somethin'." 


"The  dear  child  1"  murmured  two 
voices  softly. 

"I've  got  to  find  my  folks,  some- 
time, but  I'll  do  the  work  first.  Mebbe 
an  hour'll  pay  for  it — 'most  I" — he 
looked  hopefully  into  Miss  Rachel's 
face. 

"Who  are  your  folks?"  she  asked 
huskily. 

By  way  of  answer  he  handed  out  a 
soiled,  crumpled  envelope  for  her  in- 
spection on  which  was  written,  "Rev. 
John  Hapgood." 

"Why— it's  father!" 

"What!"  exclaimed  Tabitha. 

Her  sister  tore  the  note  open  with 
shaking  fingers. 

"It's  from— Paul!"  she  breathed, 
hesitating  a  conscientious  moment 
over  the  name.  Then  she  turned  her 
startled  eyes  on  the  boy  who  was  re- 
garding her  with  lively  interest. 

"Do  I  belong  to  you?"  he  asked 
anxiously. 

"I — I  don't  know.  Who  are  you — 
what's  your  name?" 

"Ralph  Hapgood." 

Tabitha  had  caught  up  the  note  and 
was  devouring  it  with  swift-moving 
eyes. 

"It's  Paul's  boy,  Rachel,"  she  broke 
in,  "only  think  of  it — Paul's  boy !"  and 
she  dropped  the  bit  of  paper  and  en- 
veloped the  lad  in  a  fond,  but  tearful 
embrace. 

He  squirmed  uneasily. 

"I'm  sorry  I  et  up  my  own  folks's 
things.  I'll  go  to  work  any  time,"  he 
suggested,  trying  to  draw  away,  and 
wiping  a  tear  splash  from  the  back  of 
his  hand  on  his  trousers. 

But  it  was  long  hours  before  Ralph 
Hapgood  was  allowed  to  "go  to  work." 
Tears,  kisses,  embraces,  questions,  a 
bath   and  clean  clothes  followed  each 


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other  in  quick  succession — the  clothc3 
being  some  of  his  own  father's  boy- 
hood garments. 

His  story  was  quickly  told.  His 
mother  was  long  since  dead,  and  his 
father  had  written  on  his  dying  bed 
the  letter  that  commended  the  boy — 
so  soon  to  be  orphaned — ^to  the  pity 
and  care  of  his  grandparents.  The 
sisters  trembled  and  changed  color  at 
the  story  of  the  boy's  hardships  on  the 
way  to  Fairtown;  and  they  plied  him 
with  questions  and  sandwiches  in 
about  equal  portions  after  he  told  of 
the  frequent  dinnerless  days  and  sup- 
perless  nights  of  the  journey. 

That  evening  when  the  boy  was  safe 
in  bed— clean,  full-stomached  and 
sleepily  content,  the  sisters  talked  it 
over.  The  Rev.  John  Hapgood,  in 
his  will,  had  cut  off  his  recreant  son 
with  the  proverbial  shilling,  so,  by 
law,  there  was  little  coming  to  Ralph. 
This,  however,  the  sisters  overlooked 
in  calm  disdain. 

**We  must  keep  him,  anyhow,"  said 
Rachel  with  decision. 

"Yes,  indeed— the  dear  child !" 

"He's  twelve,  for  all  he's  so  small, 
but  he  hasn't  had  much  schooling. 
We  must  see  to  that — we  want  him 
well  educated,"  continued  Rachel,  a 
pink  spot  showing  in  either  cheek. 

"Indeed  we  do — we'll  send  him  to 
college!  I  wonder  now,  wouldn't  he 
like  to  be  a  doctor?" 

"Perhaps,"  admitted  the  other  cau- 
tiously, "or  a  minister." 

"Sure  enough — he  might  like  that 
better,  I'm  going  to  ask  him!"  and 
she  sprang  to  her  feet  and  tripped 
across  the  room  to  the  parlor-bedroom 
door.  "Ralph,"  she  called  softly,  after 
turning  the  knob,  "are  you  asleep?" 

"Huh?    N-no  ma'am."    The  voice 


ucaily  gave  the  lie  to  the  words. 

"Well,  dear,  we  were  wondering — 
would  you  rather  be  a  minister,  or  a 
doctor?"  she  asked,  much  as  though 
she  were  offering  for  choice  a  peach 
and  a  pear. 

"A  doctor !"  came  emphatically  from 
out  of  the  dark — there  was  no  sleep 
in  the  voice  now.  "I've  always  wanted 
to  be  a  doctor." 

"You  shall,  oh,  you  shall  1"  prom- 
ised the  woman  ecsta;tical)y,  going 
back  to  her  sister ;  and  from  that  time 
all  their  lives  were  ordered  with  that 
one  end  in  view. 

The  Hapgood  twins  were  far  from 
wealthy.  They  owned  the  homestead, 
but  their  income  was  small,  and  the 
added  mouth  to  fill — and  that  a  hungry 
one — counted.  As  the  years  passed, 
Huldy  came  less  and  less  frequently 
to  help  in  the  kitchen,  and  the  sisters' 
gowns  grew  more  and  more  rusty  and 
darned. 

Ralph,  boy  like,  noticed  nothing — 
indeed  half  the  year  he  was  away  at 
school ;  but  as  the  time  drew  near  for 
the  collie  course  and  its  attendant 
expenses,  the  sisters  were  sadly 
troubled. 

"We  might  sell,"  suggested  Tabitha, 
a  little  choke  in  her  voice. 

Rachel  started. 

"Why,  sister! — sell?  Oh,  no,  we 
couldn't  do  that !"  she  shuddered. 

"But  what  can  we  do?" 

"Do?— why  lots  of  things!"— 
Rachel's  lips  came  together  with  a 
snap.  "It's  coming  berry  time,  and 
there's  our  chickens,  and  the  garden 
did  beautifully  last  year.  Then  there's 
your  lace  work  and  my  knitting — they 
bring  something.  Sell?  Oh — we 
couldn't  do  that!"  And  she  abruptly 
left  the  room  and  went  out  into  the 


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21 


yard.  There  she  lovingly  trained  a 
wayward  vine  with  new  shoots  going 
wrong,  and  gloated  over  the  rose 
bushes  heavy  with  crimson  buds. 

But  as  the  days  and  weeks  flew  bv 
and  September  drew  the  nearer, 
Rachel's  courage  failed  her.  Berries 
had  been  scarce,  the  chickens  had  died, 
the  garden  had  suffered  from  drought, 
and  but  for  their  lace  and  knitting 
work,  their  income  would  have 
dwindled  to  a  pitiful  sum  indeed. 
Ralph  had  been  gone  all  summer;  he 
had  asked  to  go  camping  and  fishing 
with  some  of  his  school  friends.  He 
was  expected  home  a  week  before  the 
collie  opened,  however. 

Tabitha  grew  more  and  more  rest- 
less every  day.    Finally  she  spoke. 

"Rachel,  we'll  really  have  to  sell — 
there  isn't  any  other  way.  It  would 
bring  a  lot,"  she  continued  hurriedly, 
before  her  sister  could  speak,  "and  we 
could  find  some  pretty  rooms  some- 
where. It  wouldn't  be  so  very  dread- 
ful!" 

"Don't,  Tabitha!  Seems  as  though 
I  couldn't  bear  even  to  speak  of  it. 
Sell?— oh,  Tabitha!"  Then  her  voice 
changed  from  a  piteous  appeal  to  one 
of  forced  conviction.  "We  couldn't 
get  anywhere  near  what  it  is  worth, 
Tabitha,  anyway.  No  one  here  wants 
it  or  can  afford  to  buy  it  for  what  it 
ought  to  bring.  It  is  really  absurd  to 
think  of  it.  Of  course,  if  I  had  an 
offer — a  good  big  one — ^that  would  be 
quite  another  thing;  but  there's  no 
hope  of  that." 

Rachel's  lips  said  "hope,"  but  her 
heart  said  "danger,"  and  the  latter  was 
what  she  really  meant.  She  did  not 
know  that  but  two  hours  before,  a 
stranger  had  said  to  a  Fairtown 
lawyer: 


"I  want  a  summer  home  in  this  lo- 
cality. You  don't  happen  to  know 
of  a  good  old  treasure  of  a  homestead 
for  sale,  do  you?" 

"I  do  not,"  replied  the  lawyer. 
"There's  a  place  on  the  edge  of  the 
village  that  would  be  just  the  ticket, 
but  I  don't  suppose  it  could  be  bought 
for  love  nor  money." 

"Where  is  it  ?"  asked  the  man  eager- 
ly. "You  never  know  what  money 
can  do — ^to  say  nothing  of  love — ^till 
you  try." 

The  lawyer  chuckled  softly. 

"It's  the  Hapgood  place.  I'll  drive 
you  over  to-morrow.  It's  owned  by 
two  old  maids,  and  they  worship  every 
stick  and  stone  and  blade  of  grass  that 
belongs  to  it.  However,  I  happen  to 
know  that  cash  is  rather  scarce  with 
them — ^and  there's  ample  chance  for 
love,  if  the  money  fails,"  he  added, 
with  a  twitching  of  his  lips. 

When  the  two  men  drove  into  the 
yard  that  August  morning,  the  Hap- 
good twins  were  picking  nasturtiums, 
and  the  flaming  yellows  and  scarlets 
lighted  up  their  sombre  gowns,  and 
made  patches  of  brilliant  color  against 
the  gray  of  the  house. 

"By  Jove,  it's  a  picture !"  exclaimed 
the  would-be  purchaser. 

The  lawyer  smiled  and  sprang  to 
the  ground.  Introductions  swiftly  fol- 
lowed, then  he  cleared  his  throat  in 
some  embarrassment. 

"Ahem!  I've  brought  Mr.  Hazel- 
ton  up  here,  ladies,  because  he  was  in- 
terested in  your  beautiful  place." 

Miss  Rachel  smiled — the  smile  of 
proud  possession;  then  something 
within  her  seemed  to  tighten,  and  she 
caught  her  breath  sharply. 

"It  is  fine!"  murmured  Hazelton; 
"and  the  view  is  grand !"  he  continued, 


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his  eyes  on  the  distant  hills.  Then  he 
turned  abruptly.  "Ladies,  I  believe  in 
coming  straight  to  the  point.  I  want 
a  summer  home,  and — I  want  this  one. 
Can  I  tempt  you  to  part  with  it?" 

"Indeed,  nol"  began  Rachel  almost 
fiercely,  then  her  voice  sank  to  a  whis- 
per ;  "I — I  don't  think  you  could." 

"But,  sister,"  interposed  Tabitha, 
her  face  alight,  "you  know  you  said 
— ^that  is,  there  are  circumstances — 
perhaps  he  would — ^p-pay  enough — " 
her  voice  stumbled  over  the  hated 
word,  then  stopped,  while  her  face 
burned  scarlet. 

"Pay ! — no  human  mortal  could  pay 
for  this  house !"  flashed  Rachel  indig- 
nantly; then  she  turned  to  Hazelton, 
her  slight  form  drawn  to  its  greatest 
height,  and  her  hands  crushing  the 
flowers  she  held  till  the  brittle  stems 
snapped,  releasing  a  fluttering  shower 
of  scarlet  and  gold.  "Mr.  Hazelton, 
to  carry  out  certain  wishes  very  near 
to  our  hearts,  we  need  money.  We 
will  show  you  the  place,  and — ^and  we 
will  consider  your  offer,"  she  finished 
faintly. 

It  was  a  dreary  journey  the  sisters 
took  that  morning,  though  the  garden 
never  had  seemed  lovelier,  nor  the 
rooms  more  sacredly  beautiful.  In  the 
end,  Hazelton's  offer  was  so  fabulous- 
ly enormous  to  their  unwilling  ears 
that  their  conscience  forbade  them  to 
refuse  it. 

"I'll  have  the  necessary  papers  ready 
to  sign  in  a  few  days,"  said  the  lawyer 
as  the  two  gentlemen  turned  to  go; 
and  Hazelton  added :  "If  at  any  time 
before  that,  you  change  your  minds 
and  find  you  cannot  give  it  up — just  let 
me  know  and  it  will  be  all  right.  Just 
think  it  over  till  then,"  he  said  kindly, 
the  dtunb  woe  in  their  eyes  appealing 


to  him  as  the  loudest  of  lamentations 
could  not  have  done.  "But  if  you 
don't  mind,  I'd  like  to  have  an  archi- 
tect, who  is  in  town  just  now,  come 
up  and  look  it  over  with  me,"  he  fin- 
ished. 

"Certainly,  sir,  certainly,"  said 
Rachel,  longing  for  the  man  to  go. 
But  when  he  was  gone,  she  wished 
him  back — ^anything  would  be  better 
than  this  aimless  wandering  from 
room  to  room,  and  from  yard  to  gar- 
den and  back  again. 

"I  suppose  he  will  sit  here,"  mur- 
mured Tabitha  dropping  wearily  on  to 
the  settee  under  the  apple  trees. 

"I  suppose  so,"  her  sister  assented. 
"I  wonder  if  she  knows  how  to  grow 
roses;  they'll  certainly  die,  if  she 
doesn't !"  and  Rachel  crushed  a  worm 
under  her  foot  with  unnecessary  vigor. 

"Oh,  I  hope  they'll  tend  to  the  vines 
on  the  summerhouse,  Rachel,  and  the 
pansies — ^you  don't  think  they'll  let 
them  nin  to  seed,  do  you?  O  dearl" 
And  Tabitha  sprang  nervously  to  her 
feet  and  started  back  to  the  house. 

Mr.  Hazelton  appeared  the  next 
morning  with  two  men — ^an  architect, 
and  a  landscape  gardener.  Rachel  was 
in  the  summerhouse,  and  the  first  she 
knew  of  their  presence  was  the  sound 
of  talking  outside. 

"You'll  want  to  grade  it  down 
there,"  she  heard  a  strange  voice  say, 
"and  fill  in  that  little  hollow;  clear 
away  all  those  rubbishy  posies,  and 
mass  your  flowering  shrubs  in  the 
background.  Those  roses  are  no  par- 
ticular good,  I  fancy ;  we'll  move  such 
as  are  worth  anything,  and  make  a 
rose  bed  on  the  south  side — we'll  talk 
over  the  varieties  you  want,  later.  Of 
course  these  apple  trees  and  those  lilacs 
will  be  cut  down,  and  this  summer- 


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house  will  be  out  of  the  way.  Youll 
be  surprised — sl  few  changes  will  do 
wonders,  and — " 

He  stopped  abruptly.  A  woman, 
tall,  flushed,  and  angry-eyed,  stood  be- 
fore him  in  the  path.  She  opened  her 
lips,  but  no  sound  came — ^Mr.  Hazel- 
ton  was  lifting  his  hat  The  flush 
faded,  and  her  eyes  closed  as  though 
to  shut  out  some  painful  sight;  then 
she  bowed  her  head  with  a  proud  ges- 
ture, and  sped  along  the  way  to  the 
house.  Once  inside,  she  threw  herself, 
sobbing,  upon  the  bed.  Tabitha  found 
her  there  an  hour  later. 

"You  poor  dear — they've  gone, 
now,"  she  comforted. 

Rachel  raised  her  head. 

"They're  going  to  cut  down  every- 
thing—  every  single  thing  1"  she 
gasped. 

"I  know  it,"  choked  Tabitha,  "and 
they're  going  to  tear  out  lots  of  doors 
inside,  and  build  in  windows  and 
things.  Oh,  Rachel — what  shall  we 
do?" 

"I  don't  know,  oh,  I  don't  know !" 
moaned  the  woman  on  the  bed,  diving 
into  the  pillows  and  hugging  them 
close  to  her  head. 

"We — we  might  give  up  selling — 
he  said  we  could  if  we  wanted  to." 

"But  there's  Ralph!" 

"I  know  it.  O  dear — ^what  can  we 
do?" 

Rachel  suddenly  sat  upright. 

"Do?  Why,  we'll  stand  it,  of 
course.  We  just  mustn't  mind  if  he 
turns  the  house  into  a  hotel  and  the 
yard  into  a — a  pasture  1"  she  said  hys- 
terically. "We  must  just  think  of 
Ralph  and  of  his  being  a  doctor. 
Come,  let's  go  to  the  village  and  see 
if  we  can  rent  that  tenement  of  old 
Mrs.  Goddard's." 


With  a  long  sigh  and  a  smothered 
sob,  Tabitha  went  to  get  her  hat. 

Mrs.  Goddard  greeted  the  sisters 
effusively,  and  displayed  her  bits  of 
rooms  and  the  tiny  square  of  yard  with 
the  plainly  expressed  wish  that  the 
place  might  be  their  home. 

The  twins  said  little,  but  their  eyes 
were  troubled.  They  left  with  the 
promise  to  think  it  over  and  let  Mrs. 
Goddard  know. 

"I  didn't  suppose  rooms  could  be 
so  little,"  whispered  Tabitha,  as  they 
closed  the  gate  behind  them. 

"We  couldn't  grow  as  much  as  9 
sunflower  in  that  yard,"  faltered 
Rachel. 

"Well,  anyhow,  we  could  have  some 
house-plants  1" — ^Tabitha  tried  to  speak 
cheerfully. 

"Indeed  we  could,"  agreed  Rachel, 
rising  promptly  to  her  sister's  height ; 
"and  after  all,  little  rooms  are  lots 
cheaper  to  heat  than  big  ones."  And 
there  the  matter  ended  for  the  time 
being. 

Mr.  Hazelton  and  the  lawyer  with 
the  necessary  papers  appeared  a  few 
dfeiys  later.  As  the  lawyer  took  off  his 
hat  he  handed  a  letter  to  Miss 
Ra'chel. 

"I  stepped  into  the  office  and  got 
your  mail,"  he  said  genially. 

"Thank  you,"  replied  the  lady,  try- 
ing to  smile.  "It's  from  Ralph," — 
handing  it  over  for  her  sister  to  read. 

Both  the  ladies  were  in  sombre 
black ;  a  ribbon  or  a  brooch  seemed  out 
of  place  to  them  that  day.  Tabitha 
broke  the  seal  of  the  letter,  and  retired 
to  the  light  of  the  window  to  read 
it. 

The  papers  were  spread  on  the 
table,  and  the  pen  was  in  Rachel's  hand 
when  a   scream   from   Tabitha  shat- 


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THE   CHANGED  STATUS 


tered   the   oppressive    silence   of  the 
room. 

"Stop — stop — oh,  stop!"  she  cried, 
rushing  to  her  sister  and  snatching 
the  pen  from  her  fingers.  "We  don't 
have  to — see — read !" — ^pointing  to 
the  postscript  written  in  a  round,  boy- 
ish hand. 

"Oh,  I  say,  I've  got  a  surprise  for  you. 
You  think  I've  been  fishing  and  loafing 
all  summer,  but  Pve  been  working  for  the 
hotels  here  the  whole  time.  I've  got  a 
fine  start  on  my  money  for  college,  and 
I've  got  a  chance  to  work  for  my  board 
all  this  year  by  helping  Prof.  Heaton. 
I  met  him  here  this  summer,  and  he's  the 
right  sort — every  time.  I've  intended  all 
along  to  help  myself  a  bit  when  it  came 
to  the  college  racket,  but  I  didn't  mean  to 
tell  you  until  I  knew  I  could  do  it.  But 
it's  a  sure  thing  now. 

"By  by;  I'll  be  home  next  Saturday. 
"Your  aflf.  nephew, 

"Ralph." 


Rachel  had  read  this  aloud,  but  her 
voice  ended  in  a  sob  instead  of  in  the 
boy's  name.  Hazelton  brushed  the 
back  of  his  hand  across  his  eyes,  and 
the  lawyer  looked  intently  out  the  win 
dow.  For  a  moment  there  was  a  si- 
lence that  could  be  felt,  then  Hazelton 
stepped  to  the  table  and  fumbled  nois- 
ily with  the  papers. 

"Ladies,  I  withdraw  my  offer,"  he 
announced.  "I  can't  afford  to  buy  this 
house — I  can't  possibly  afford  it — it's 
too  expensive."  And  without  another 
word  he  left  the  room,  motioning  the 
lawyer  to  follow. 

The  sisters  looked  into  each  other's 
eyes  and  drew  a  long,  sobbing  breath. 

"Rachel,  is  it  true?" 

"Oh,  Tabitha!  Let's— let's  g©  out 
under  the  apple  trees  and — just  know 
that  they  are  there!" 

And  hand  in  hand  they  went. 


The  Changed  Status  of  American  Labor 

By  Day  Allen  Willey 


NEARLY    twenty    years   ago 
Abram    S.   Hewitt,   then   a 
representative  in  Congress, 
uttered  these  words  in  one 
of  his  speeches: 

*The  time  will  come  when  labor 
will  no  longer  work  for  wages,  but  for 
profits." 

The  great  ironmaster  lived  to  see 
his  prediction  fulfilled  in  part  and  the 
beginning  made  in  a  new  era  in  the 
history  of  American  labor,  for  one 
who  candidly  and  impartially  reviews 
the  conditions  of  the  broad  field  of  in- 
dustry including  the  more  recent  dis- 


turbances must  admit  that  the  status 
of  the  working  man  and  working 
woman  has  materially  changed  in  their 
relations  to  the  employer.  They  are 
being  elevated  in  the  eyes  of  the  peo- 
ple and  labor  is  acquiring  the  dignity 
so  often  ascribed  to  it  by  the  orator, 
forcing  a  national  recognition  of  its 
position,  partly  by  its  own  efforts, 
partly  by  the  broad  and  deep  interest 
which  is  being  manifested  in  the  army 
of  toilers.  One  indication  is  in  the 
variety  of  plans  conceived  for  their 
betterment.  Not  only  have  individu- 
als  and   associations   taken    up   such 


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OF  AMERICAN   LABOR 


25 


work  actuated  merely  by  the  generous 
desire  to  aid  their  fellows,  but  the 
spirit  displayed  by  the  employers  in 
person  and  as  corporations  indicates 
that  the  movement  is  not  confined  to 
any  particular  class  or  locality.  That 
it  is  appreciated,  is  demonstrated  by 
the  attitude  of  the  working  people  not 
merely  as  individuals,  but  through 
their  representatives.  In  short  two  of 
the  greatest  elements  which  make  up 
human  society  are  reaching  towards 
each  other  apparently  desirous  of 
clasping  hands  in  a  gn^sp  of  friend- 
ship. 

The  present  situation  results  from 
a  combination  of  circumstances.  It 
has  not  arisen  from  the  protracted 
contest  in  the  anthracite  coal  regions, 
although  this  caused  an  outburst  of 
popular  sympathy  for  the  miners 
which  has  never  been  before  equalled 
in  the  history  of  the  country'.  While 
the  episode  was  a  most  important  fac- 
tor in  arraying  people  for  the  time  on 
the  side  of  the  workingman,  his  condi- 
tion, as  is  well  known,  had  been  a  sub- 
ject of  study  and  research  for  several 
years — study  which  resulted  in  a  di- 
versity of  plans  being  undertaken  for 
his  unlifting.  One  outgrowth  of  this 
thought  was  the  creation  of  a  new  ad- 
junct of  American  progress — ^the  so- 
cial engineer — the  value  of  whose  la- 
bors, although  covering  but  a  brief 
period,  can  not  be  over-estimated. 
Until  recently  the  majority  of  these 
projects  could  be  considered  only  in 
the  light  of  an  experiment.  The  pro- 
moters themselves  were  not  sanguine 
as  to  the  outcome  for  in  many  re- 
spects tlieir  undertaking  was  both  dif- 
ficult and  delicate.  Fortunately,  how- 
ever, the  suggestions  for  social  im- 
provement,   for   example,   have   been 


such  as  to  appeal  forcibly  to  the  bene- 
ficiaries, and  to  this  fact  is  due  so 
much  of  the  success  thus  far  attained 
— for  success  has  been  attained.  The 
results  to  be  seen  here  and  there  prove 
that  the  work  has  at  last  passed  the 
questionable  stage. 

For  this  reason  it  is  worth  while  to 
outline  what  has  thus  far  been  accom- 
plished by  the  agitation.  One  note- 
worthy feature  is  that  it  has  been  con- 
fined to  no  particular  section  but  is 
national  in  character.  The  model  fac- 
tory towns  of  the  West  and  even  those 
more  recently  created  in  the  South  are 
rivals  of  others  in  New  England  in 
their  healthfulness,  conveniences  and 
general  attractiveness.  This  is  the 
brief  story  of  the  transformation  of 
one  industry  in  the  West  which  has 
sequels  in  several  other  states  as  well, 
for  its  history  is  practically  their  his- 
tory. It  was  an  instance  of  a  cor- 
poration on  whom  a  thousand  families 
depended  for  support.  The  village 
formed  by  the  works  and  lodgings  of 
the  employes  in  the  suburbs  of  the 
city  differed  little  from  a  hundred  oth- 
ers. The  buildings,  blackened  by  the 
smoke  constantly  pouring  from  the 
chimneys,  loomed  up  among  the 
shambling  piles  of  brick  and  mortar 
which  covered  the  wage-earners. 
Walls  twenty  feet  high  surrounded 
the  works,  built  after  a  serious  strike 
in  order  to  protect  the  property  in  case 
of  further  trouble.  A  fringe  of  sharp- 
pointed  spikes  told  a  story  of  dis- 
trust. In  the  streets  the  dust  was  so 
thick  that  in  windy  weather  it  blew 
in  clouds  everywhere  except  when  the 
rain  converted  the  roadbeds  into 
masses  of  mud.  Paving  on  the  side- 
walks was  unknown  save  in  front  of 
two  or  three  of  the  residences  of  the 


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THE   CHANGED   STATUS 


bosses.  There  was  not  a  tree  in  this 
portion  of  the  town.  A  few  of  the 
women  managed  to  keep  alive  three  or 
four  pots  of  plants  in  the  little  dirty 
windows,  but  not  a  yard  contained 
even  an  attempt  to  make  a  flower-bed. 
In  this  section  the  industries  are  so 
numerous  that  it  resembles  the  "black 
country"  of  Birmingham,  England 
where  one  may  travel  for  miles  and 
rarely  see  a  plant  or  shrub.  There 
was  absolutely  no  green  spot  for  a 
breathing  place.  The  soot,  cinders 
and  evidences  of  the  factory  were 
everywhere. 

The  head  of  the  company  was  a 
man  of  ideas  which  extended  beyond 
the  mere  accumulation  of  wealth.  It 
was  suggested  to  him  that  if  more 
than  a  commercial  interest  were  shown 
in  the  employes,  it  would  not  only  be 
an  act  of  philanthropy,  but  in  the  end 
might  be  a  benefit  financially  to  its 
promoters  in  averting  further  friction. 
As  the  difficulty  referred  to  had  cost 
the  company  $750,000,  by  the  loss  of 
contracts  which  it  could  not  fulfill, 
this  may  have  been  one  incentive  for 
the  work  which  followed.  A  series  of 
improvements,  was  begun  which  made 
a  wonderful  change.  Within  two 
years  the  factory  village  looked  like  a 
new  town.  Most  of  the  brick  tene- 
ments had  disappeared ;  the  dirt-paved 
streets  and  sidewalks  were  nowhere 
to  be  seen.  Instead  were  highways 
paved  with  stone  in  the  center  and  their 
sidewalks  edged  with  grass  plots  con- 
taining rows  of  shade  trees.  Cottages 
— some  single  and  some  large  enough 
to  contain  two  families,  provided  with 
the  modern  conveniences — lined  the 
streets.  They  were  painted  in  attrac- 
tive colors  and  each  had  its  piazza, 
with  a  dooryard  of  ample  size  for 


shrubbery  and  flowers,  the  backyard 
converted  into  vegetable  and  flower 
gardens,  with  spaces  of  grass  large 
enough  for  a  hammock,  possibly  a 
croquet  set.  A  part  of  the  old  tene- 
ment buildings  had  been  converted 
into  a  warehouse.  Along  its  ding^ 
sides  vines  were  springing.  The  bride 
wall  remained,  but  the  row  of  ugly 
spikes  had  been  replaced  by  a  wooden 
trough,  containing  a  row  of  boxwood. 
The  little  wooden  hut  where  the  time- 
keeper stayed,  had  been  changed  to  a 
pagoda,  partly  covered  with  foliage. 
To  furnish  more  light  to  the  workmen, 
portions  of  the  factory  walls  had  been 
removed.  Substituted  was  framework 
in  which  glass  was  set  so  thickly  that 
this  part  of  tlie  building  resembled  a 
huge  window. 

After  laying  out  the  streets  and 
building  the  cottages,  space  enough 
was  afforded  for  two  little  parks  of 
about  an  acre,  each  of  which  was 
adorned  with  rows  of  flowcrii^  bushes 
and  thickly  sprinkled  with  shade  trees. 
Each  family  was  presented  with  a 
package  of  flower  seeds,  also  slips  for 
garden  use,  and  prizes  offered  by  the 
company  for  the  most  attractive  de- 
signs in  beds  and  other  forms  of  deco- 
rations. A  hothouse  was  built  and 
placed  in  charge  of  the  landscape 
gardener.  The  company  employed  a 
number  of  girls  in  the  packing  and 
shipping  departments,  who  were  al- 
loted  sections  of  the  hothouse  in  which 
to  raise  bouquet  flowers  for  their  own 
use.  The  entire  cost  of  the  natural 
decorations  or  landscape  gardening 
astonished  the  company  when  the  bills 
were  presented — it  was  less  than  the 
secretary's  salary  for  one  year.  The 
employes  cheerfully  paid  a  small  ad- 
vance in  house  rent,  enough  to  re-im- 


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OF  AMERICAN   LABOR 


27 


burse  the  extra  expense  to  the  com- 
pany for  constructing  the  cottages. 
The  v^^etable  gardens  saved  some- 
thing out  of  the  workman's  weekly 
wages,  which  had  been  spent  at  the 
grocer's  and  market.  The  change  in 
their  way  of  living  created  in  the  peo- 
ple a  desire  to  better  their  own  appear- 
ance and  from  being  shiftless  and 
careless  they  became  neat  in  their 
dress  and  thriftier  in  their  habits  as 
was  shown  by  the  increase  in  deposits 
at  the  local  savings  banks.  Many  took 
the  opportunity  to  buy  their  homes, 
paying  for  them  in  installments. 

Such  briefly  was  the  eflFort  made 
for  the  material  improvement  of  the 
employes.    Here  the  work  was  to  have 
ceased,  but  the  results  were  so  pro- 
nounced that  the  plans  were  greatly 
elaborated.     The  town  was  provided 
with  a  building  containing  a  gymna- 
sium, concert  and  lecture  hall,  sewing 
and  cooking  school,  and  rooms  for  va- 
rious societies  of  the  workmen.  A  park 
was  laid  out  with  flower  beds  and 
playground  where  the  band  of  factory 
employes  gave  weekly  concerts.    The 
town  government  was  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  employes,  who  elect  their 
officers,   maintain   the   improvements 
made  by  the  company  and  hold  them- 
selves responsible   for  its   condition. 
In  die  factory  itself,  a  restaurant  was 
established   for  the   employes   where 
they  could  be  served  with  food  at  cost. 
A  dining  room  was  set  apart  for  the 
girls  and  women  rent  free,  also  a  rest 
and  recreation  room  comfortably  fur- 
nished and  containing  a  piano  and  li- 
brary where  they  could  spend  their 
leisure  time  after  luncheon.    A  hospi- 
tal service  was  organized  to  aid  injured 
employes,  while  they  have  formed  an 
association  that  pays  a  certain  sum  to 


the  family  of  a  deceased  member,  and 
the  expenses  incident  to  one's  illness. 

Such  are  some  of  the  ideas  which 
have  been  put  into  practice  in  this 
Western  industrial  center  in  ''an  ef- 
fort to  make  work  pleasant"  to  quote 
the  words  of  the  president — at  first 
hesitatingly  as  a  mere  experiment,  but 
at  last  with  the  conviction  that  the  re- 
sult was  worth  while,  both  in  the  ap- 
preciation of  those  benefited  and  from 
a  monetary  standpoint  as  well. 

Probably  a  more  comprehensive 
plan  has  been  taken  up  by  this  com- 
pany for  general  betterment  of  the 
workman  than  elsewhere  in  the  United 
States,  but  as  already  stated  the  agita- 
tion has  not  been  limited  to  any  state 
or  section  and  modifications  of  these 
ideas  have  been  adopted  by  a  surpris- 
ingly large  number  of  employers, 
when  the  recent  inception  of  the 
movement  is  remembered.  Some  of 
them  may  be  briefly  referred  to.  The 
town  of  Hopedale,  Massachusetts,  so 
happily  named,  represents  the  interest 
which  the  Draper  Loom  Company  has 
manifested  in  the  subject.  Also  in 
New  England  the  Gorham  Manufac- 
turing Company  has  carried  out  an  in- 
teresting work  at  Providence.  Model 
Southern  communities  are  those  of  the 
Pelzer  Company  in  South  Carolina, 
the  Eagle  and  Phoenix  Company  in 
Georg^  and  the  Dwight  Company  in 
Alabama.  The  H.  J.  Heinz  Company 
of  Pittsburg,  the  Cleveland  Glass 
Company  and  the  Sherwin-Williams 
Company  of  Qeveland,  Ohio,  the 
Acme  Lead  Company  of  Detroit  and 
the  beautiful  suburb  of  Dayton,  Ohio, 
created  by  the  National  Cash  Regis- 
ter Company  are  notable  western  il- 
lustrations, but  in  this  section  the  so- 
cial betterment  of  the  men  who  toil  in 


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THE   CHANGED   STATUS 


mine  and  foundry  has  been  attempted 
at  the  works  of  the  Joliet  Steel  Com- 
pany in  Illinois  and  the  Qeveland 
Cliffs  Iron  Company  in  Michigan. 
Perhaps  Cleveland,  Ohio,  is  the  prin- 
cipal center  of  such  interests  in  the 
United  States,  as  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  the  representative  com- 
mercial organization  of  that  city,  has 
heartily  encouraged  the  idea  and  no 
less  than  thirty  employers  have  taken 
it  up. 

In  lessening  the  distance  between 
employer  and  employed  the  opportu- 
nity offered  the  workman  to  become 
something  more  than  a  mere  wage 
earner  has  also  played  a  part  of  deep 
significance.  The  idea  of  profit  shar- 
ing is  not  of  recent  conception.  It  is 
not  even  original  with  the  United 
States,  but  the  number  of  individuals 
and  companies  who  have  invited  their 
hands  to  join  them  in  ownership  has 
been  so  small  that  its  effect  has  not 
perhaps  been  realized  as  it  should  have 
been. 

Within  the  last  three  years  how- 
ever, a  decided  impetus  was  given  by 
the  action  of  corporations  who  have 
on  their  pay-rolls  from  25,000  to  over 
a  hundred  thousand  men.  Since 
President  Stu}^esant  Fish,  on  the 
part  of  the  Board  of  Directors  of  the 
Illinois  Central  Railroad  Company,  in- 
vited the  mechanic  in  the  sliop,  the  en- 
gineer in  the  cab,  and  the  track  walker 
and  crossing  keeper  to  buy  an  interest 
in  the  great  property  which  furnished 
them  a  livelihood,  the  progress  of  this 
cooperation  has  been  the  subject  of 
widespread  comment,  for  the  com- 
pany may  be  said  to  have  established 
a  precedent  in  the  plan  it  adopted, 
which  was  to  allow  each  one  inter- 
ested to  buy  his  stock  outright  or  to 


take  a  certain  number  of  shares,  pay- 
ing for  it  in  installments.  The  oppor- 
tunity to  secure  an  investment  which 
realized  six  per  cent  in  dividends  proved 
so  acceptable  that  when  the  time  for 
subscriptions  expired,  several  thou- 
sand of  the  skilled  and  unskilled  work- 
men were  recorded  as  among  the  own- 
ers of  the  railroad  having  the  same 
right  to  meet  and  cast  their  ballot  for 
this  or  that  policy  as  the  millionaire 
shareholders  with  whom  they  were 
thus  put  on  an  equality.  Since  the 
first  distribution  of  stock  in  this  man- 
ner, the  interest  among  the  employes 
has  greatly  increased,  as  indicated  by 
additional  investments.  While  the  de- 
parture of  the  Illinois  Central  Com- 
pany in  its  attitude  towards  its  em- 
ployes attracted  much  attention,  as 
has  been  stated,  the  more  recent  deci- 
sion of  the  United  States  Steel  Corpo- 
ration— ^the  greatest  employer  of  labor 
in  America — to  invite  its  hands  to 
participate  in  ownership,  elicited  the 
deepest  public  interest  owing  to  the 
magnitude  of  the  plan  involved.  Al- 
though differing  in  some  respects 
from  that  put  forth  by  Mr.  Fish,  it 
also  met  with  a  surprisingly  general 
response,  for  when  the  books  were 
closed  on  Febniary  4th,  no  less  than 
27,633  men  had  subscribed  for  51,125 
shares  subject  to  the  ratification  of  the 
Board  of  Directors.  Of  these  sub- 
scribers 14,260  were  hands  receiving 
from  $800  to  $2,500  annually.  While 
none  of  the  remainder  received  over 
$800  yearly  in  wages,  yet  they  repre- 
sented nearly  9  per  cent  of  the  entire 
force  of  165,000  men.  A  point  of  spe- 
cial significance  in  this  connection  is 
that  a  larger  proportion  of  the  class 
comprising  unskilled  labor  appreci- 
ated the  opportunity  to  thus  make  pro- 


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OF   AMERICAN    LABOR 


29 


vision  for  themselves.  Incidentally  it 
may  be  said  that  a  plan  of  profit-shar- 
ing was  put  into  execution  by  another 
railroad  company  as  far  back  as  1887, 
when  the  Toledo,  Ann  Harbor  & 
North  Michigan  through  its  president, 
Mr.  J.  W.  Ashley,  decided  to  pay  its 
employes  a  dividend  computed  in  this 
somewhat  novel  manner:  The  sum 
representing  the  aggr^^te  salary  ac- 
count for  the  year  was  added  to  the 
capital  stock,  and  the  earnings  appli- 
cable for  a  dividend  were  distributed 
as  a  percentage  of  the  total  amount  of 
capital  and  wages,  the  stockholders 
receiving  the  dividend  accruing  from 
their  ownership  of  shares  and  each 
employe  a  dividewl  in  proportion  to 
the  salary  he  earned. 

The  pensioning  of  employes  is  one 
of  the  most  noticeable  features  of  the 
movement  to  which  we  are  referring, 
although  it  is  not  a  new  feature  in  in- 
dustrial administration  by  any  means. 
The  fact  that  so  many  of  the  principal 
railway  companies  have  thought  it 
wise  to  provide  for  their  employes  in 
this  manner,  indicates  that  they  deem 
it  a  practical  measure.  Yet  neither 
the  Pennsylvania  nor  the  Illinois  Cen- 
tral, which  may  be  called  the  pioneers 
in  the  movement,  took  the  initial  step 
until  1 901.  The  plan  of  procedure  is 
substantially  similar  in  all  of  the  in- 
stances where  it  lias  been  put  into 
operation.  The  employe  who  has 
reached  the  age  of  sixty  years  or  over 
and  has  been  continuously  in  the  com- 
pany's service  for  a  certain  period  of 
years  is  permitted  to  retire,  and  is 
paid  a  sum  annually  in  proportion  to 
his  former  salary  and  term  of  employ- 
ment. The  Delaware,  Lackawanna  & 
Western  Company  retires  the  men 
who  have  been  with  it    twenty-five 


years,  at  the  age  of  sixty-five.  If  they 
have  been  earning  an  average  of  sixty 
dollars  monthly  during  the  ten  years 
preceding  retirement,  their  monthly 
pension  is  eighteen  dollars.  If  their 
salary  has  been  more  or  less,  the  al- 
lowance is  varied  accordingly.  About 
the  same  scale  is  followed  by  the  other 
companies. 

At  present  five  of  the  princi- 
pal transportation  companies  have 
adopted  the  pension  system — the  Phil- 
adelphia &  Reading  and  the  Chicago 
&  Northwestern  in  addition  to  the 
others  named.  The  Pennsylvania  at 
present  provides  for  about  1,200  of  its 
men  at  an  annual  outlay  of  $250,000 
in  round  numbers — ^an  increase  of 
$100,000  since  the  first  year  it  put  the 
system  in  force.  The  Chicago  & 
Northwestern  pays  out  $200,000 
yearly,  and  the  Illinois  Central  about 
$125,000.  It  is  an  interesting  fact 
that  the  largest  street  railway  cor- 
poration in  the  country  has  also  taken 
up  the  idea.  The  Inter-urban  of  New 
York  allows  a  pension  of  25  per  cent 
of  the  annual  average  wages  based 
on  the  ten  years  previous  to  retire- 
ment, where  service  has  ranged  from 
twenty-five  to  thirty  years.  From  this 
amount  as  high  as  40  per  cent  is  paid, 
calculated  on  the  same  scale. 

The  part  taken  by  organized  labor  in 
altering  the  status  of  the  working  man 
is  also  well  worthy  of  study  in  this 
connection.  The  disastrous  results  ot 
strikes  where  unions  have  succeeded 
in  partly  or  entirely  suspending  the 
activity  of  industries  and  the  traflSc  of 
railroads,  need  no  comment.  Here,  it 
must  be  admitted,  exists  one  reason 
for  the  willingness  of  the  factory 
owner  and  the  railroad  president  to 
approve  measures  calculated  to  end 


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THE   CHANGED   STATUS 


friction  with  employes,  for  the  losses 
inflicted  by  the  strikers  on  themselves 
as  well  as  their  employers  have  reached 
an  amount  really  appalling  in  its 
proportions.  In  twenty  years  no  less 
than  117,509  industries  were  affected 
by  labor  disturbances  which  closed 
77,244  for  periods  ranging  from  a  few 
days  to  several  months'  duration. 
Conservative  calculations  place  the 
total  actual  loss  incurred  by  the  em- 
ployers at  $125,000,000,  not  counting 
possible  profits  from  business  had  the 
industries  been  continually  in  opera- 
tion. The  loss  in  wages,  however, 
amounted  to  $258,000,000,  sustained 
by  the  6,000,000  hands  thrown  out  of 
employment  on  the  several  occasions. 
Yet  without  the  organization  of  labor 
perhaps  not  one  per  cent  of  these  move- 
ments would  have  been  successful. 
The  capitalist  has  had  good  reason  to 
regard  such  associations  with  fear  and 
aversion.  There  was  a  time  not  so  far 
back  when  public  sentiment  in  the 
main  was  inimical  to  the  union*  It 
was  the  period  when  the  workingman 
was  influenced  by  appeals  to  his  pas- 
sions and  prejudices,  when  the  labor 
leader  was  successful  because  of  his 
open  vindictiveness  to  the  heads  of  in- 
dustry r^;ardless  of  right  or  wrong. 
He  accomplished  his  ends  principally 
by  his  eloquence,  not  his  logic,  but  the 
present  position  of  organized  labor  is 
a  compliment  to  the  intelligence  of 
those  enrolled  in  it,  for  it  is  more  of 
a  power  to-day  than  at  any  time  in  its 
history;  yet  the  men  who  are  its 
leaders — such  men  as  Gompers  and 
Mitchell  and  Arthur — ^hold  their  posi- 
tions because  they  have  won  the  con- 
fidence of  the  bodies  they  represent  by 
the  common  sense  and  judgment  they 
have  displayed  in  the  settlement    of 


labor  questions.  The  agitator  has  been 
succeeded  by  the  organizer  and  the 
orator  by  the  reasoner.  Cautiousness, 
shrewdness  and  diplomacy  are  some  of 
the  successful  tactics  of  the  modem 
labor  leader — ^wonderfully  displayed  in 
the  strike  in  the  anthracite  coal  fields — 
perhaps  the  greatest  illustration  of  ab- 
solute confidence  of  men  in  one  man, 
in  American  history.  But  every  plan 
was  carefully  considered  and  every 
movement  thoroughly  discussed  before 
being  put  into  execution  at  the  head- 
quarters of  the  American  Federation 
at  Washington — ^that  nerve  centre 
which  controls  the  actions  of  two  mil- 
lion men  and  women.  Able  as  Mr. 
Mitchell  proved  himself  to  be  to  cope 
with  the  situation,  he  secured  the  ad- 
vice of  President  Gompers  and  his  ad- 
visory council,  as  well  as  the  vice- 
presidents  of  the  associated  miners  in 
every  important  step  to  be  taken. 

Such  is  one  instance  which  indicates 
that  as  the  labor  unions  have  de- 
veloped in  influence  and  numbers  their 
position  has  tended  more  and  more  to 
conservatism.  Lawlessness  of  any 
kind  has  been  discountenanced  in  con- 
nection with  differences  with  employ- 
ers. Apparently  they  have  so  highly 
prized  the  value  of  public  opinion  that 
they  have  abandoned  many  of  the  ex- 
treme methods  resorted  to  in  the  past 
to  enforce  their  demands,  and  a  feature 
of  no  little  mcmient  is  their  willingness 
to  submit  their  cause  to  arbitration, 
the  Pennsylvania  episode  forming  only 
one  illustration.  The  personnel  of 
the  National  Civic  Federation,  which 
it  is  hoped  will  be  America's  Hague 
Tribunal  for  the  settlement  of  all  in- 
dustrial differences  in  the  near  future, 
is  perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  the 
confidence    which    the    workingmen 


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OF  AMERICAN    LABOR 


31 


have    in  arbitration,   for  it    includes 
heads  of  the  organizations  on  which 
they  so  greatly  depend.    Their  spokes- 
men have  been  publicly    quoted    on 
numerous     occasions   as   adverse    to 
strikes  and  in  favor  of  such  a  move- 
ment only  after  all  other  efforts  failed. 
With  the  workman  contented  with 
the  present    and    hopeful  as  to  the 
future,  one  of  the  causes   which   has 
led  him  to  enroll  himself  in  the  union 
will  no  longer  exist.    Yet  there  is  no 
question  that  the  policy  of  such  bodies 
as  the  Federation  has  been  to  at  least 
accept  the  new  era  of  things  if  it  does 
not  actively  exert  itself  in  their  favor. 
When  the  United  States  Steel  Cor- 
poration made  the  proposition  to  its 
men  to  become  part  owners    in    tlie 
various   properties,   before   deciding, 
representatives  of  the  organized  metal 
workers  on  its  pay-rolls  submitted  the 
question  to  Mr.Gompers  and  his  coun- 
cil.    It   was   unanimously   approved. 
Had  the  idea  been  discouraged  it  is 
safe  to  say  very  few  of  the  thousand.*; 
of  union  men  in  the  employment  of 
the  corporation  would  have  become 
shareholders.       Indeed    so     fiar    as 
known  no  expression  of  disappproval 
of  this  sort  has  been  uttered  by  any 
of  the  prominent  trades  associations, 
though  the  step  taken  in  admitting 
employes  to  a  proprietory  interest  is 
evidently  one  of  the  most  practical 
ways  of  avoiding  friction  with  them, 
while  it  tends  to  weaken  the  influence 
of  unionism.     The  laborer  hesitates 
long  before  committing  himself  to  any 
actkm  which  will  injure  what  is  his 
own,  no  matter  how  little  it  may  be. 
He  regards  the  suspension  of  wages 
incurred  by  leaving  his  work  very  dif- 
ferently from  the  loss  to  the  industry 
in  which  his  interest  may  amount  to 


only  a  few  hundred  dollars.  In  the 
first  instance  his  time  and  effort  are 
exchanged  for  the  money.  When  he 
ceases  to  give  them  he  cannot  expect 
any  return.  In  the  last  case,  however, 
idleness  of  the  plant  through  act  of 
his,  lessens  its  value  to  him  in  pro- 
portion to  his  holdings  of  stock  or 
share  of  its  profits. 

Since  the  opening  paragraphs  of 
this  article  have  been  prepared  by  the 
author  in  which  reference  was  made 
to  Mr.  Hewitt's  prediction  and  the 
future  grasp  of  friendship  of  the  great 
two  elements  of  society,  one  of  the 
most  extensive  employers  of  labor  in 
the  West,  Hon.  Myron  T.  Herrick 
of  Ohio,  has  made  public  these  utter- 
ances :  "We  see  the  gradual  approach 
to  each  other  of  capital  and  labor, 
brought  to  handclasps  by  peaceful 
negotiations  and  arbitration.  Some  of 
our  foremost  men  in  all  walks  of  life 
have  voluntarily  given  their  time  and 
their  treasitre  toward  eliminating  from 
our  life  that  ugly  montmient  of  the 
demagogue — class  hatred.  The  great 
bulk  of  employes  and  employers  no 
longer  regard  each  other  as  enemies, 
but  as  friends." 

What  such  an  alliance  means  aside 
from  the  mere  benefit  to  those  who 
join  in  it  cannot  be  adequately  fore- 
told; it  is  too  momentous  in  its  pos- 
sible results.  One  outcome,  however, 
can  be  clearly  defined,  the  elevation  of 
American  citizenship  to  a  higher  stan- 
dard and  a  deeper  spirit  of  patriotism, 
for  as  the  workman  is  regarded  more 
as  a  man  and  less  as  a  piece  of  mechan- 
ical flesh  and  blood,  he  will  feel  that  he 
occupies  a  place  in  the  human  family 
which  he  should  fill  with  credit  to  it. 
His  feeling  of  obligation  will  include 
his  country  as  well  as  his  employer. 


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The  Return  of  the  Cattle 
in  September 

(Switzerland.) 
By  Eliza  Boyle  O'Reilly 

DOWN  from  the  crags  of  the  mountains, 
Down  from  the  lands  near  the  skies, 
Lands,  where  the  river's  pure  fountains 
Rippling  arise, 
Down  come  the  herds  of  the  cattle — 

Musical  bells  ringing  clear — 
Back  to  their  bondage  as  chattel 

Lowing  in  fear. 

Wistful  the  eyes  of  the  younglings ! 

Bom  on  the  heights  near  the  moon, 
Stifling  to  them  is  the  valley. 

Sun-wrapt  at  noon; 
Frighted,  bewildered  they  scatter. 

Pant  for  their  freedom  of  old, 
Stem  drives  the  voice  of  the  herdsman 
On  to  the  fold. 

Patient,  subdued  plod  the  elders — 

Thraldom  to  man  know  they  well  I — 
Back  in  the  field  and  the  farm  yard 

Once  more  to  dwell. 
Herd  follows  herd  down  the  high-road. 

Day  is  o'er  shadowed  for  me, 
Grieved  is  my  heart  by  the  tramping : 

Life  should  be  free  I 

Down  from  the  crags  of  the  mountains, 

Down  from  the  lands  near  the  skies, 
Lands,  where  the  river's  pure  fountains 

Rippling  arise, 
Down  come  the  herds  of  the  cattle — 

Musical  bells  ringing  clear — 
Back  to  their  bondage  as  chattel 
Lowing  in  fear. 


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ROQUEFAVOUR    AQUEDUCT,    MARSEILLES    CANAL 


A  French  Bayreuth 

By  Florence  Sampson 


s 


^OLENNITE  Artistique!  Pi 
lerinage  d*  Orange!  Thea- 
tre Antique!  CEdipe  Roi! 
Trains  speciaux  dans  toutes 
les  directions!"  The  huge  capital 
letters  made  this  poster  conspic- 
uous among  a  multitude  of  others 
advertising  the  virtues  of  a  candi- 
date for  depute  (Congressman), 
meetings  to  clamor  for  and  to  pro- 
test against  the  expulsion  of  the  re- 
ligious orders,  and  pilgrimages  to 
Lourdes,  which  were  to  be  rewarded 
by  the  cure  of  all  bodily  ills,  or,  what 
seemed  equally  desirable,  by  *7a  sainte 
resignation.'*  Probably  from  no  other 
single  source  can  be  obtained  a  clearer 
insight  into  French  character,  or  a 
more  extended  knowledge  of  what 
is  going  on  in  the  French  social,  politi- 


cal, or  literary  worlds  than  from  a 
French  billboard.  Nothing  is  too  great 
or  too  little  to  find  a  place  on  it,  so  I 
was  not  at  all  surprised  to  see  the 
chief  dramatic  event  of  the  year 
nailed  up  beside  meetings  of  So- 
cialists and  warnings  to  owners  of 
misbehaving  dogs.  The  great  afiiche, 
which  was  posted  in  every  town, 
village  and  hamlet  of  France,  was 
printed  in  blue  on  white  paper,  and 
framed  in  margins  of  red,  this 
use  of  the  tricolor  showing  that 
something  was  under  government  aus- 
pices, whether  the  '' solennite artistique  * 
or  the  '^theatre  antique/'  I  knew  not. 
The  government  proved  to  be  respon- 
sible for  both.  The  former  was  Sopho- 
cles' tragedy  of  CEdipus  Tyrannus,  to 
be  given  by  Mounet-SuUy  and  the  full 

33 

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Orange,  from  the  Hill 


cast  of  the  Comedie  Frangaise,  the 
theatre  in  Paris  founded  by  Moliere 
and  subsidized  by  the  state  since  the 
days  of  Louis  XIV,  while  the  latter 
was  none  other  than  the  old  Romaii 
theatre  at  Orange,  built  2,000  years 
ago  and  restored  in  1897  as  a  ''Na- 
tional Theatre,"  in  which  the  govern- 
ment gives  every  year  two  spectacular 
performances,  on  a  large  scale.  A 
Greek  play  given  out-doors  in  a  Ro- 
man theatre  2,000  years  old,  produced 
with  the  artistic  perfection  and  the 
absolute  correctness  of  archaeological 
detail  for  which  the  very  name  of 
Theatre-Frangais  is  guarantee,  cer- 
tainly seemed  alluring.  The  per- 
formance was  to  take  place  on  the 
evening  of  Saturday,  the  9th  of 
August,  at  a  quarter  of  nine  ^'pre- 
cises," so  the  affichc  assured  me,  and 
for  seats  the  ^'honorable  public"  shouM 
34 


apply  to  M.  Mosscnct  at  the  town  hall 
in  Orange;  price  of  ''chaises  numcro- 
tces" — in  our  theatres  the  front  row^s 
in  the  orchestra — 5  francs,  plus  75 
centimes  for  lettrc  recommandcc'' 
(registered  letter)  and  ''prix  de  lo- 
cation" (a  small  fee  demanded  at 
all  European  theatres  for  the  privi- 
lege of  buying  tickets  before  the  day 
of  the  performance).  I  lost  no  time 
in  writing  to  M.  Massenet,  and  re 
ccived  by  return  of  post  one  of  those 
strips  of  tissue  paper  abhored  by  all 
Americans,  used  to  good,  hard  paste- 
board tickets,  and  a  note  of  thanks, 
written  by  hand,  nearly  a  page  in 
length.  As  7,000  persons  bought  tick- 
ets for  that  performance,  M.  Masse- 
net's time  must  have  been  fully  occu- 
pied, if  he  wrote  a  personal  letter  to 
every  ticket-holder,  as  I  suppose  he 
did. 


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35 

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Grange  Town  Hall   and  Square 


One  of  the  ''trains  spcciaux''  prom- 
ised by  tlie  afUche  deposited  me  at 
Orange  about  three  o'clock  in  the  af- 
ternoon of  the  appointed  day.  By 
going  down  thus  early,  I  had  ample 
time  to  do  the  antiquities  of  the  town 
before  settling  in  a  cafe  to  read  my 
play-book  and  study  the  throngs  that 
were  streaming  in  all  the  afternoon 
and  early  evening.  The  crowds  which 
poured  in  from  all  parts  of  France, 
were  of  absorbing  interest,  not  so 
much  from  the  number  of  celebrities, 
though  they  were  legion — the  red  rib- 
bon of  the  Legion  of  Honor  and  the 
button  of  the  Academy  were  every- 
where— as  from  the  remarkable  illus- 
tration they  afforded  of  the  love  of  art 
inherent  in  all  classes  of  the  French 
people.  A  play  that  in  America 
would  have  appealed  only  to  the  culti- 
vated, in  France  aroused  the  utmost 
enthusiasm  in  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  men  and  women.  Grocers  and 
36 


pork-butchers  jostled  professors  from 
the  Sorbonne  and  Immortals  from  the 
Academy;  artists  and  litterateurs  were 
cheek  by  jowl  with  "dames  de  comp- 
toir"  and  blue-f rocked  peasants;  and 
the  Arlesian  women  in  their  quaint 
costumes  contrasted  strangely  with  the 
fin-de-siccle  Parisiennes  in  the  latest 
creations  of  Doucet. 

Orange,  now  a  sleepy  little  town  of 
about  ten  thousand  inhabitants,  was  m 
Roman  days  a  large,  prosperous,  and 
important  city,  rivalling  Nimes  and 
Aries  in  the  beauty  of  its  public  build- 
ings. In  modern  times  its  name  Is 
familiar  from  having  been  borne  by 
the  house  of  Nassau.  It  certainly 
seems  one  of  the  oddest  things  in  his- 
tory that  this  insignificant  French 
town  should  have  given  its  name  to 
the  heirs  to  the  throne  of  Holland  and 
to  a  city  in  the  New  World  (for  New 
York  was  called  New  Orange  during 
the    second    Dutch    occupation),    and 


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Mount  Major   Abbey 


that  "Prince  of  Orange"  should  have 
been  a  title  borne  by  that  King  of 
England  who  had  sovereign  rights 
over  the  principality.  The  thing  came 
about  in  this  wise.  From  the  eleventh 
to  the  sixteenth  centuries,  Orange  was 
the  capital  of  a  small  principality  ruled 
by  its  own  princes  and  gazed  on  with 
covetous  eyes  by  the  kings  of  France, 
of  whom  it  was  entirely  independent, 
and  with  the  symmetry  of  whose  do- 
minions it  sadly  interfered.  In  153/, 
upon  the  death  without  issue  of  its 
ruler,  Philibert  de  Chalons,  the  princi- 
pality fell  to  his  sister.  She  brought 
it  as  dowry  to  her  husband,  the  Count 
of  Nassau,  who  assumed  the  title  of 
Prince  of  Orange  and  bequeathed  it  to 
his  descendants.  Until  the  death  of 
that  WilHam  of  Orange  who  became: 
King  of  England,  the  principality  re- 
mained subject  to  the  house  of  Nas- 


sau-Orange. When  William  died,  the 
king  of  Prussia  laid  claim  to  Orange 
by  virtue  of  descent  from  the  Nassau 
family,  and  in  spite  of  other,  rightful 
perhaps,  but  weaker,  claimants  was  al- 
lowed by  the  Treaty  of  Utrecht  in 
1 71 3  to  make  over  the  principality  to 
Louis  XIV,  probably  as  compensation 
for  those  of  his  possessions  in  the 
New  Worid,  Newfoundland  and  Nova 
Scotia,  which  the  treaty  compelled  the 
French  king  to  surrender  to  England. 
Thus,  at  last,  by  the  absorption  of  tiny 
Orange,  was  completed  the  map  of 
France,  a  map  that  had  been  over  a 
thousand  years  in  the  making.  As  far 
as  Orange  antiquities  are  concerned, 
it  is  a  great  pity  that  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht  did  not  take  place  earlier  in 
Louis  XIV's  reign,  for  this  monarch 
was  continually  warring  with  the  then 
ruler,  Maurice  of  Nassau,  untiLfinally  ^ 

Jigitized  by  Vg^OOQlC 


38 


A    FRENCH    BAYREUTH 


Orange  Arch  of  Marius 

Maurice  destroyed  most  of  the  monu- 
ments in  order  to  make  Orange  the 
strongest  fortress  in  Europe.  The 
triumphal  arch  he  s[)ared,  but  the 
theatre  he  shamefully  maltreated — the 
proud  and  majestic  theatre  which  had 
remained  intact  until  his  day,  emerg- 
ing victorious  from  tiie  attack  of  Gaul 
and  Visigoth,  and  triumphing  over  all 
the  assaults  of  sixteen  centuries.  An 
inscrutable  Providence  did  not  deal  as 
kindly  with  Orange  as  with  Blois — for 
death  removed  Gaston  d'Orleans  be- 
fore he  had  time  to  carry  out  his  inten- 
tion of  tearing  down  the  chateau — but 
Maurice  was  allowed  to  live  and  wreak 
his  will  upon  the  theatre,  whose  em- 
bellishments, with  their  wealth  of 
marble  and  mosaic,  he  utterly  de- 
stroyed. 

The  Arch  of  Triumph  is  remarkably 
well  preserved,  as  it  was  incorporated 
in  the  palace  of  the  Princes  and  thus 
escaped  the  vandalism  of  Maurice.  A 
beautiful  structure  it  is,  consisting  of 
three  arches.  The  central  arch  is  much 
higher  than  the  others  and  its  deep . 
vault  is  beautifully  coffered.  The 
whole  is  richly  sculptured  and  orna- 
mented with  reliefs,  among  which 
naval  trophies  are  conspicuous.  The 
name  Sacrovir  on  one  of  the  shields 


has  led  some  antiquaries  to  suppose 
that  the  arch  was  erected  after  the  de- 
feat of  this  Aeduan  chief,  A.  D.  21. 
On  another  shield  is  the  word  Mario, 
consequently  other  authorities  con- 
tend that  it  was  raised  to  commemorate 
Marius'  victory  over  the  Cimbri;  but 
the  Romans  suffered. a  bad  defeat  at 
the  hands  of  the  Cimbri  in  Orange. 
Moreover,  triumphal  arches  did  not 
come  into  fashion  until  the  days  of  the 
early  CtTsars,  so  the  weight  of  au- 
thority attributes  the  Orange  arch  to 
the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and  his 
successes  on  the  Danube.  The  attic 
story  is  covered  with  curious  bas-re- 
liefs of  contests  between  Romans  and 
( lauls.  The  faithful  Baedeker  assures 
me  that  the  side  away  from  the  town  is 
in  better  preservation  than  the  other 
parts  of  the  arch.  How  that  may  be  I 
cannot  say,  as  the  dust  on  that  side 
was  so  thick  that  I  could  not  see 
through  it.  Never  in  my  life  have  I 
swallowed  such  dust.  The  Mistral,  or 
northwest  wind,  was  blowing  a  hurri- 
cane, and  the  rows  of  Lombardy  pop- 
lars wl«ch,  here  as  everywhere  in 
Provence,  are  set  out  as  shields 
against  the  Mistral,  failed  lament- 
ably in  their  purpose.  Inside  the 
town  the  streets  are  paved,  so  the 
dust  was  not  so  bad;  but  the  pene- 
trating wind  seemed  to  blow  from 
all  quarters  at  once  and  the  cold 
was  really  bittci.  I  was  thinly  clad,  as 
1  had  been  led  to  expect  warm 
weather,  not  to  say  heat,  in  Southern 
France  in  midsummer.  Fortunately  I 
had  brought  as  a  wrap  a  thick  fur- 
lined  cape.  Had  I  not  had  this,  I 
could  not  have  stayed  through  the  per- 
formance in  the  theatre,  so  intense  was 
the  cold. 

The  theatre  is  about  ten  minutes' 

Jigitized  by  V:»00QIC 


Exterior  of  the  Roman  Theatre 


walk  from  the  Arch,  in  the  opposite 
part  of  the  town.  With  the  exception 
of  Pompeii,  this  is  the  only  Roman 
theatre  that  has  come  down  to  us, 
and  at  Pompeii  not  a  vestige  re- 
mains of  the  stage  wall,  nor  is  the 
rest  of  the  structure  in  nearly  as 
perfect  preservation  as  is  the  Or- 
ange theatre.  No  Roman  remain,  not 
even  the  Coliseum,  is  to  me  more  im- 
pressive than  this  stupendous  ruin. 
Addison  says  that  the  theatre  is  worth 
all  Orange;  for  Addison  spent  a  part 
of  that  three  hundred  pounds  a  year 
which  he  persuaded  King  William  to 
allow  him  for  four  years,  **to  enlarge 
his  experience  by  continental  travel" 
upon  a  visit  to  his  benefactor's  heredi- 
tary capital.  I  should  say,  rather,  that 
the  theatre  is  worth  the  tremendous 
tragedies  enacted  there.  No  more 
fitting  setting  could  be  devised  for 
(Edipus  or  Antigone.  The  very  size 
of  the  stage  seems  to  imply  the  awful 


passions  and  the  inevitable  fate  of  the 
Greek  drama.  A  colossal  wall  faces 
the  hill  which  the  ingenious  Romans 
converted  into  their  auditorium  by  ex- 
cavating its  limestone  rock  into  semi- 
circular tiers  of  seats.  The  hill  was 
originally  crowned  by  a  citadel  of 
the  Romans,  the  materials  of  which 
were  later  built  into  the  castle  of  the 
Princes  of  Orange,  razed  in  1673  by 
Louis  XIV.  Some  distance  up  the 
slope,  in  one  of  the  tiers,  may  still  be 
seen  a  seat  bearing  the  letters  Eq.  C. 
TTI  (Knights'  3rd  Row).  The  wall, 
HI  feet  high,  334  feet  long,  and  13 
feet  thick,  is  composed  of  huge  blocks 
of  dark  brown  stone  fitted  together 
without  cement.  Near  the  top  of  the 
exterior  face  run  two  rows  of  corbels, 
or  brackets,  pierced  with  holes  to  re- 
ceive the  poles  by  which  the  vela^ 
ritim  (awning)  was  stretched  over  the 
auditorium.  The  inner  side  of  the 
wall,   which   forms  the  back  of  the 

39 

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40 


A    FRENCH    BAYREUTH 


Looking  towards  the  Stage 

stage,  was  faced  with  marble  in  Ro- 
man times,  and  is,  if  possible,  even 
more  imposing  than  the  outer. 
Though  not  a  vestige  remains  of  the 
coating  of  marble  which  formerly 
covered  its  enormous  surface,  nor  of 
the  statues  which  filled  its  niches,  it 
is  still  wonderfully  impressive  and 
makes  the  Orange  theatre  unique,  for 
in  no  other  ancient  theatre  is  the 
scenic  wall  preserved.  As  the  Roman 
drama  adhered  to  practically  all  the 
conventions  of  the  Greek,  we  find  five 
portals  in  the  stage  wall.  Through 
the  magnificent  central  portal,  the 
aula  regia,  now  merely  a  great  hole  ii« 
the  masonry,  only  those  actors  who 
personated  kings  could  enter.  Over 
this  portal  is  a  niche  which  contained 
the  statue  either  of  the  Emperor  or  of 
a  god.  The  smaller  portal  on  the  left 
was  for  queens  and  princesses;  that 
on  the  right  for  guests.  From  tlie 
portal  on  the  left  wing  entered  natives 


The  Theatre  Restored 


of  the  country  in  which  the  scene  of 
the  play  was  laid ;  from  that  on  the 
right  foreigners  or  strangers.  This 
convention  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
spectators  in  the  Dionysiac  theatre  at 
Athens  looked  out  on  the  left  to  the 
city,  on  the  right  to  the  plains  of  At- 
tica; so,  naturally,  the  actors  coming 
from  the  left  side  were  to  them  their 
own  people,  while  those  entering  froiii 
the  right  came  from  a  distance.  This 
ancient  convention  is  still  preserved  in 
the  modern  French  theatre  by  the 
"court"  and  "garden''  entrances. 

Contrary  to  the  usual  custom,  the 
stage  was  roofed.  This  roof  has  now, 
of  course,  entirely  disappeared,  yet, 
such  are  the  acoustic  properties  of  the 
theatre,  every  word  spoken  on  the 
stage  can  be  heard  even  in  the  upper- 
most tiers  of  seats.  At  either  end  of 
the  stage  is  an  anteroom  of  enormous 
height ;  indeed,  the  roofs  are  on  a  level 
with  that  of  the  scenic  wall.  One  ol 
these  anterooms,  that  of  the  stage  left, 
was  the  ancient  green-room;  the 
other  opens  into  traces  of  chambers 
supposed  to  have  formed  part  of  a 
hippodrome  connected  with  the  thea- 
tre. On  the  night  of  the  perfonnance 
these  anterooms  were  concealed  by  a 
thick  screen  of  hemlock  trees,  from 
behind  which  the  chorus  emerged 
upon  the  stage. 

For  the  excellence  of  the  acting  as  a 
whole  the  name  of  Theatre-Fran - 
gais  is  sufficient  voucher.  The  play 
marched  on  with  the  lofty  dignity  and 
perfection  of  finish  which  was  to  be 
expected  of  such  actors,  inspired  and 
stimulated  to  their  utmost  endeavor  by 
the  grandeur  of  the  tragedy  and  the 
unusual  majesty  of  its  setting.  A 
brief  outline  of  the  tragedy  may  not 
be  out  of  place.     An  oracle  had  fore- 


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Looking  towards  the  Town 


told  to  Laius,  king  of  Thebes,  that  he 
would  be  killed  by  his  own  son.  Con- 
sequently, when  the  queen  Jocasta 
bears  a  son,  Laius  has  the  babe  ex- 
posed on  Mount  Cithaeron.  A  herds- 
man rescues  the  child,  names  it  CEdi- 
pus,  and  bears  it  to  Corinth,  where 
Polybius,  the  king,  rears  it  as  his  own 
son.  After  he  has  reached  man's  es- 
tate, someone  taunts  CEdipus  with  not 
being  the  true  son  of  Polybius,  so  the 
youth  goes  to  Delphi  to  learn  the  truth 
from  the  oracle.  The  oracle  tells  him 
that  he  shall  kill  his  father,  marry  his 
mother,  and  beget  a  race  horrible  to 
mankind.  To  escape  this  hideous  fate, 
the  unhappy  CEdipus  decides  not  tj 
return  to  Corinth,  and  proceeds  to 
Thebes.  On  the  way  he  meets  the 
chariot  of  Laius,  has  an  altercation 
with  the  charioteer,  and  kills  Laius. 
In  the  meantime  the  Sphinx  has  ap- 


peared in  Thebes  and  propounds  her 
famous  riddle  to  every  passerby.  All 
are  unable  to  guess  it  and  are  promptly 
killed.  CEdipus  succeeds  in  solving 
the  enigma  and  delivers  Thebes  from 
the  Sphinx.  The  grateful  inhabitants 
make  him  king  and  give  him  their 
queen  Jocasta  to  wife.  CEdipus  rules 
wisely  and  well.  Jocasta  bears  him 
four  children.  Then  a  terrible  plague 
comes  upon  the  city  and  the  play  opens 
with  a  scene  between  CEdipus  and  a 
throng  of  his  Theban  subjects.  The 
king  enters  upon  the  stage  through 
the  royal  portal  and  comes  down  to 
meet  the  eager  crowd  of  suppliants, 
men,  women  and  children,  wreathed  in 
garlands  and  bearing  olive  branches  in 
their  hands.  He  receives  the  suppliants 
graciously,  sympathizes  in  their  dis- 
tress, and  assures  them  that  he  has  al- 
ready sent  Creon  to  Delphi  to  implore 

41 
Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


42 


A    FRENCH    BAYREUTH 


aid,  and  that  his  messenger  is  even 
now  returning.  Creon,  the  messenger, 
reports  that  the  plague  has  been  in- 
flicted on  Thebes  because  of  the  blood 
of  Laius,  whose  murderer  is  even  now 
in  the  city.  CEdipus  pronounces  e. 
curse,  deep  and  long,  on  the  murderer 
and  pledges  his  help  in  tracking  him. 
Tiresias,  the  blind  seer,  is  summoned 
to  assist  in  the  search  and  reluctantlv 
declares  that  thaking  himself  is  Laius* 
murderer.  CEdipus'  wrath  is  fearful — 
he  drives  Tiresias  from  his  presence 
with  biting  words.  As  the  action  of 
the  play  proceeds  and  the  truth  of 
Tiresias'  statement  is  little  by  little 
forced  on  the  unhappy  king,  his  grief 
is  piteous.  He  fights  desperately 
against  the  truth, but  at  last  compelled 
to  admit  his  awful  guilt,  the  wretched 
man  puts  out  his  eyes  that  he  may  no 
more  look  upon  his  fellow  men,  while 
Jocasta  hangs  herself. 

The  French  consider  CEdipus  Mou- 
net- Sully's  greatest  role,  and  that 
night  he  certainly  fulfilled  the  expec- 
tations of  the  program  de  s'elever  au- 
dessus  de  lui-meme.  The  quarrel  with 
Tiresias  was  marred  by  a  tendency  to 
rant,  but  with  this  exception  his  inter- 
pretation was  flawless.  The  closing 
scene  was  really  fearful  in  its  intensity. 
CEdipus  enters,  his  ghastly  eye  sockets 
and  blood-stained  face  contrasting 
strangely  with  his  graceful  flowing 
draperies.  He  passes  hesitatingly 
once  or  twice  across  the  stage,  and 
then,  leaning  on  the  shoulder  of  a 
slave,  the  despairing  victim  of  relent- 
less fate  slowly,  slowly  disappears  into 
the  darkness  among  the  hemlocks. 
Such  was  his  art  that  the  audience  was 
fairly  sick  with  horror  at  the  thought 
of  the  unspeakable  years  through 
which  the  unhappy  man  must  live. 


The  color  eflfects  and  tableaux  were 
beautiful  beyond  words,  and  their 
beauty  seemed,  if  anything,  enhanced 
by  the  absence  of  scenery.  Followin.^ 
the  Greek  tradition,  the  leading  char- 
acters were  all  in  white.  The  cos- 
tumes of  the  chorus  furnished  the 
only  color  and  imparted  the  splendor 
needed  to  make  the  stage  a  fit  setting 
for  the  kings  and  queens  upon  its 
boards. 

Nothing  could  excel  the  majesty  of 
the  production,  though  the  impressive- 
ness  of  the  chorus  was  somewhat 
marred  by  the  tossing  of  its  drapery, 
when  an  especially  virulent  gust  of 
wind  seemed  determined  to  blow  down 
even  the  mighty  wall.  The  prayers  of 
the  afiichc  for  "two  radiant  evenings  of 
August,  limpid  and  blue,"  were  em- 
phatically not  answered.  The  audi- 
ence, however,  appeared  entirely  su- 
perior to  all  climatic  infelicities,  in 
spite  of  the  French  horror  of  draughts 
and  fresh  air.  Its  enthusiasm  knew 
no  bounds,  even  in  the  franc  places, 
the  ancient  slave  seats  in  the  topmost 
rows  of  the  amphitheatre,  where  the 
force  of  the  wind  was  most  keenly  felt. 
These  franc  places  should  be  avoided. 
The  best  seats  are,  I  think,  the  gradins 
nuincrotcs  (the  lowest  in  the  semi- 
circular tiers),  which  cost  eight  francs. 
( )f  course  these  have  the  disadvantage 
that  one  must  sit  on  stone,  and  make 
cushions  really  necessary.  However, 
very  thin  pillows  may  be  hired  in  the 
theatre,  if  it  is  not  convenient  to  bring 
one's  own.  The  chaises  numerotees, 
ordinary  cane-seated  chairs,  which  fill 
the  orchestra  or  space  between  the 
stage  and  the  semi-circular  tiers,  are 
advisable  if  one  is  afraid  of  stone 
seats,  or  has  but  slight  acquaintance 
with  the  language,  and  hence  wishes 


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MOUNET-SULLY 


Mme.  Segond-Weber 


to  be  near  the  actors.  Proximity  to 
the  stage  is  no  objection,  as  even  the 
front  row  of  chairs  is  placed  so  far 
from  the  footlights  that  one  does  not 
have  to  look  up. 

Mounet-Sully  strongly  protested 
against  this  use  of  the  orchestra, 
which  was  in  direct  violation  of  Greek 
tradition,  as  in  the  ancient  drama  this 
space  was  always  preserved  for  the 
evolutions  of  the  chorus.  However, 
the  chairs  added  much  to  the  seating 
capacity,  and  the  beautiful  grouping 
of  the  chorus  would  have  been  sadly 
missed  upon  the  stage.  The  produc- 
tion was  a  perfect  success  artistically, 
but  the  practical  arrangements  left 
much  to  be  desired.  Two  microscopic 
arc  lights  were  supposed  to  light  the 
vast  auditorium,  but  hardly  sufficed  to 
make  darkness   visible.     There    were 


neither  ushers  nor  plan  of  the  theatre ; 
the  ticket-takers  could  give  no  help, 
and  in  the  almost  Egyptian  darkness 
to  find  one's  place  was  a  serious  task. 
These,  however,  were  only  slight  draw- 
backs, and  the  excellence  of  the  rail- 
way service  more  than  atoned  for  the 
incompetence  of  the  theatre  employees. 
Special  trains,  plainly  placarded,  de- 
parted in  every  direction  at  frequent 
intervals ;  the  station,  left-luggage 
room,  and  ticket-office  remained  open 
all  night  and  were  manned  by  courte- 
ous, obliging,  and  rapid  officials.  The 
station  seemed  almost  an  after  piece 
to  the  play,  so  packed  was  it  with 
celebrities  passing  the  night  there,  m 
the  thrifty  foreign  fashion,  to  save 
hotel  bills.  And  thus  the  beautiful 
performance  passed  into  a  memory 
that  will  ever  be  a  precious  possession. 


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The  Unforgotten  Whittier 


By  John  Wright  Buckham 


TO  understand  the  reasons  why 
John  Greenleaf  Whittier  is 
so  dear  a  name  to  all  sons 
and  daughters  of  New  Eng- 
land, why  his  poetry  is  so  inwoven 
into  the  fabric  of  New  England  life, 
one  has  but  to  visit  the  birth- 
place of  the  poet,  the  old  Whittier 
homestead  in  Haverhill.  Here  the  se- 
cret is  disclosed.  All  the  poetry  of 
early  New  England  life  is  here  sug- 
gested and  typified.  What  a  cradle  for 
a  poetic  soul !  The  house  itself,  so  ad- 
mirably preserved,  rude  yet  comely, 
with  its  low  but  cheery  rooms,  its 
great  fire-place  around  which  gath- 
ered the  happy  circle  immortalized  in 
"Snow  Bound",  its  plain  but  not  in- 
artistic furniture,  the  atmosphere  of 
simple  love  and  goodness  lingering 
about  it  still,  like  the  perfume  of  a 
faded  rose ;  outside,  the  great  barn, 
with  its  generous  open  doors,  the  well- 
sweep,  the  surrounding  fields  and 
woods,  the  little  brook, 

**The  music  of  whose  liquid  lip 
Had  been  to  us  companionship, 
And,  in  our  lonely  life,  had  grown 
To  have  an  almost  human  tone," 

everything,  suggests  the  idealiza- 
tion of  that  humble  life  of  toil  and 
contentment,  of  love  and  virtue  amid 
the  quiet  beauty  of  New  England 
hills  which  has  been  the  strength  and 
glory  of  our  national  life.  A  more 
ideal  home  for  the  poet  interpreter  of 
44 


New  England,  imagination  could  not 
picture.  The  house  itself,  the  life  it 
typifies,  the  scenery  in  which  it  is  set, 
are  all  instinct  with  poetry. 

American  farm  life  produces  finn- 
ness  and  strength, — notes  that  are  not 
lacking  in  Whittier's  life  and  poems; 
it  produces  also,  though  oftenest  in 
woman,  a  tenderness  and  harmony  of 
soul  that  found  their  perfect  consum- 
mation in  this  Quaker  poet.  His  face 
was  an  index  of  blended  earnestness 
and  gentleness.  It  was  at  once  benig 
nant  and  serious,  kindly  and  reserved, 
a  face  of  thoughtfulness  and  a  face  of 
feeling.  Whittier's  eye,  one  who  saw 
him  never  could  forget.  It  has  been 
called  the  "Bachelor  eye",  an  in- 
herited glory  from  his  mother's 
family, — that  mother  whose  por- 
trait reveals  so  much  of  the 
sweetness  and  intelligence  found 
in  her  son, — but,  if  so,  it  must  have 
reached  its  apotheosis  in  Whittier. 
Those  eyes  had  all  the  depth  and  se- 
renity of  the  mountain  lakes  that  he 
loved;  the  clearness  and  alertness  of 
the  swift  brooks  hadjstolen  into  them ; 
they  reflected  the  beauties  of  the  flow- 
ers and  the  grandeurs  of  the  moun- 
tains, the  lights  and  shadows  of  the 
woods ;  in  them  the  quiet  joys  and  the 
tender  sorrows  of  life,  love  and  con- 
templation, memory  and  feeling,  found 
expression. 

Whittier  lived  a  simple,  serene  life 


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The  Whittier  Family 


looked  at  as  a  whole,  yet  not  without 
the  stress  and  turbulence  of  an  active 
participation  in  the  struggle  for  hu- 
manity. The  battle  for  the  freedom  of 
the  slave  drew  the  modest  poetic 
youth,  whose  convictions  were  too 
strong  for  mere  words,  into  the 
centres  of  strife  and  places  of  danger, 
into  public  meetings  and  legislatures, 
into  the  drudgeries  of  secretarial  work 
and  the  distastes  of  lobbying.  When 
one  thinks  of  John  G.  Whittier  as  a 
lobbyist,  lobbying  for  the  release  of 
his  colored  brother  from  slavery,  he 
realizes  how  a  great,  pure  soul,  sacri- 
ficing self  for  others,  can  ennoble  even 
the  politician's  occupation.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  connect  the  Whittier  of  later 
years  with  the  editor,  legislator,  agita- 
tor, of  earlier  years,  the  friend  of  Gar- 


rison and  Parker,  attending  meetings 
of  Adullamites,  writing  controversial 
editorials,  and  poems  aflame  with 
wrath  against  iniquity,  travelling  to 
Hartford,  to  New  York,  to  Philadel- 
phia in  the  service  of  the  cause  which 
he  had  espoused;  yet  Whittier,  the 
Abolitionist,  and  Whittier,  the  Quaker, 
were  one  and  the  same,  and  the  calm 
of  after  years  was  only  the  more 
golden  for  the  noble  strife  and  activity 
of  early  manhood. 

Nor  did  the  steady  growth  of  poetic 
instinct  and  poetic  art  suffer  any  lapse 
because  of  this  active  service  of  hu- 
manity. From  the  day  when  he  first 
woke  to  the  consciousness  of  the 
power  of  poetry  over  the  copy  of  Rob- 
ert Burns,  loaned  him  by  Joshua  Cof- 
fin, the  schoolmaster,  until  the  day  of 

45 


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THE    UNFORGOTTEN    WHITTIER 


his  deaths  Whittier  was  above  all  else 
a  poet.  What  a  picture  is  that  which 
Francis  Underwood  has  preserved  for 
us  of  the  farmer's  boy,  pausing  in  his 
task  of  mending  the  fence,  to  gaze,  ob- 
livious of  the  world  about  him,  upon 
the  "Poet's  Corner"  of  the  county 
newspaper  which  the  mail  carrier  had 
just  tossed  to  him,  there  to  read  his 
first  printed  poem,  "The  Deity", — a 
poetic  description  of  the  revelation  of 
God  to  Elijah  on  Horeb,  showing  the 
touch  of  genius  as  well  as  the  touch 
of  youth. 

It  must  have  been  most  pleasing 
and  instructive  to  observe  the  develop- 
ment of  Whittier's  poetic  instinct,  to 
watch  his  genius,  while  losing  none  of 
the  inspiration  and  vigor  of  earlier 
years,  casting  aside  faults  and  blem- 
ishes, growing  sweeter,  more  musical, 
more  profound,  taking  on  grace,  wis- 
dom, breadth,  finish,  until  in  his  ma- 
turity, his  poems,  rich  in  sentiment, 
lucid  and  harmonious  in  diction  and 
ripe  in  spiritual  wisdom,  touch  the 
deeper  heart,  alike  of  the  way-faring 
man  and  the  critic. 

The  poems  of  Whittier  may  be  di- 
vided into  four  classes:  poems  leg 
endary  and  local,  the  poems  of  free- 
dom, poems  of  nature  and  home-Hfe 
and  religious  poems.  This  division, 
though  somewhat  arbitrary  and  in- 
exact, will  help  us  to  appreciate  the 
wealth  and  character  of  the  service 
which  Whittier  has  rendered  as  a 
poet. 

I.  Whittier  has  done  New  Eng- 
land a  great  service  in  giving  her 
legends  and  local  incidents,  many  of 
which  might  otherwise  have  been  lost, 
poetic  form  and  meaning.  He  is  not 
the  only  New  England  poet  who  has 
done  this,   but  he  has  done  it  more 


fully  and  minutely  than  any  other. 
Many  of  his  earlier  poems,  like  Mogg 
Megone,  Moll  Pitcher,  The  Bridal  of 
Pennacook,  The  Exiles  and  Cassan- 
dra South  wick  were  legendary.  And 
throughout  his  career  he  was  con- 
stantly embalming  with  the  spices  and 
perfumes  of  his  verse,  some  local  in- 
cident or  old-time  story  whose  deeper 
meaning  and  poetic  setting  had  been 
before  undetected.  In  this  way  he 
has  stretched  the  fairy  wand  of  poet- 
ry over  Essex  County  and  many 
other  portions  of  New  England,  trans- 
forming old  bits  of  folk-lore  into 
beautiful  and  meaningful  poetic  crea- 
tions; so  that  no  one  goes  to  Marble- 
head  without  enquiring  for  the  Wish- 
ing-Bridge  or  the  house  of  Flutl 
Trcson,  or  passes  Wexiham  Lake 
without  thinking  of  the  Little  Witch 
of  Wenham,  or  follows  the  banks  of 
the  Merrimac  without  remembering 
Cobbler  Keezar's  lapstone  or  poor 
Parson  Avery,  "dropping  down 
the  river-harbor  in  the  shallop 
'Watch  and  Wait',"  or  visits 
Amesbury  without  looking  for  the 
Captain's  Well.  It  increases  the 
value  of  real  estate,  or  per- 
haps we  might  better  say  the  real 
value  of  estate,  wondrously,  to  have  a 
true  poet  thus  cast  the  mantle  of  his 
genius  over  familiar  spots  and  well- 
known  tales.  The  light  of  the  glory 
of  poetry  falls  upon  them  and  they 
are  no  more  the  same. 

2.  Whittier  was,  above  all  others, 
the  poet  of  emancipation.  The  free- 
man and  the  freedman  owe  him  an 
inexpressible  debt  of  gratitude  for 
his  Voices  of  Freedom.  They  were 
among  the  leading  agencies  in  creat- 
ing public  sentiment  in  behalf  of  the 
slave.     As    examples    of    poetic     art 


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THe    UNFORGOTTEN    WHITTIER 


47 


they  may  not  be  faultless,  but  through 
them  breathes  a  pure  exalted  hatred  of 
wrong,  and  love  of  truth  and  right, 
out  o£  which  the  truest  poetry  springs. 
The  Pastoral  Letter,  Texas,  The 
Christian  Slave,  song  of  the  Free  are 


God  and  our  charter's  right, 

Freedom  forever! 
Truce  with  oppression, 

Never,   O,  never!" 

3.     Whittier  is    the    most    pictur- 
esque poet  of  New  England  country 


Whittier's  Birthplace 


full  of  moral  strength  and  the  fire  of 
righteous  indignation. 

"If  we  have  whispered  truth, 
Whisper  no  longer; 
Speak  as  the  tempest  does. 
Sterner  and  stronger; 

Still  be  the  tones  of  truth 

Louder  and  firmer; 
Startling  the  haughty  South 

With  the  deep  murmur; 


life.  His  bucolics  rank  with  those  of 
\^irgil  and  Theocritus.  Comrades  of 
the  ** little  man"  we  trudge  the  dusty 
road,  learn 

**Ho\v  the  robin  feeds  her  young. 
How  the  oriole's  nest  is  hung. 
Where   the   whitest  lilies  blow. 
Where  the  freshest  berries  grow." 

eat  our    bowl    of    bread    and    milk 


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Oak  Knoll 


"On  the  door  stone  gray  and  rude. 
While   for  music  comes  the  play 
Of  the  pied  frogs'  orchestra 
And,   to   light  the  noisy  choir, 
Lights  the  fly  his  lamp  of  fire." 

With  him  we  lie  before  the  great  fire 
on  stormy  winter  nights, 

"Content  to  let  the  north-wind  roar 
In  baffled  rage  at  pane  and  door. 
While  the  red  logs  before  us  beat 
The  frost-line  back  with  tropic  heat; 
And  ever,  when  a  louder  blast 
Shook  beam  and  rafter  as  it  passed, 
The  merrier  up  its  roaring  draught 
The     great    throat      of     the      chimney 
laughed." 

With  the  same  boy,  now  grown  up 
and  flown  from  the  nest,  we  return  to 
the  old  home  and  look  again  "on  the 
little  red  gate  and  the  well-sweep 
near"  and  hear  the  chore-girl  "telling 
the  bees." 

"And  the  song  she  was  singing  ever  since 

In  my  ear  sounds  on: — 
'Stay  at  home,  pretty  bees,  fly  not  hence! 

Mistress  Mary  is  dead  and  gone!'" 

For   a  picture  of  the  highest  and 
most  satisfying  aspects  of  country  life 
48 


nothing  can  equal  the  poem,  "Among 
the  Hills."  It  is  a  plea  for  rural 
life,  deftly  drawn,  richly  colored, 
beautiful,  persuasive. 

New  Hampshire's  debt  to  Whittier 
is  almost  as  great  as  that  of  his  na- 
tive state.  The  White  Mountains 
were  dearly  loved,  and  worthily  sung 
by  him.  The  Conway  meadows,  the 
Sandwich  and  Franconia  mountains, 
lovely  Winnepesaukee  and  Asquam, 
lent  their  glories  to  his  responsive 
soul,  and  he  in  turn  gave  added  glory 
to  them.  Thus  the  grander  as  well 
as  the  quieter  beauties  of  New  Eng- 
land scenery,  mountain  and  brook  as 
well  as  the  tranquil  Merrimac  and  the 
mighty  sea  found  place  in  his  heart 
and  in  his  verse, 

4.  As  an  interpreter  and  moulder 
of  religious  life,  though  he  occupied 
no  pulpit  and  wrote  no  theologies, 
John  G.  Whittier  has  had  a  wide  and 
beneficent  influence.  During  the 
great  struggle  against  slavery  he 
pleaded,  like  an  ancient  prophet,  for 
righteousness   and  justice.     In   the 


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THE   UNFORGOTTEN    WHITTIER 


49 


later  years  of  his  life  he  stood,  more 
especially,  for  two  gjeat  principles. 
then,  and  still,  needing  peculiar  em- 
phasis. 

The  last  twenty-five  years  have 
witnessed  a  great  and  significant 
change  with  respect  to  the  prominence 
of  creeds  as  indices  of  Christianity. 
Thefe  has  been  an  earnest  and  wide 
insistence  upon  life,  as  contrasted  with 
creed,  as  a  standard  of  faith  and  char- 
acter. No  one  has  had  a  more  in- 
fluential part  in  this  reform  than  Whit- 
tier.  His  poems,  strenuous,  devout, 
widely  read,  coming  from  a  man  uni- 
versally beloved,  have  revealed,  as  in 
the  light  of  eternity,  the  superiority 
of  Christian  love  and  conduct  to  creed 
and  profession. 

Poems  embodying  this  principle  will 
readily  occur  to  every  reader, — the 
Vision  of  Echard,  in  which  the  Bene- 
dictine monk,  in  his  vision,  hears  God 
say,  "I  tread  upon  your  creeds";  the 
Minister's  Dau^ter,  who  touches  her 
Calvinist  father's  heart  by  saying  to 
him,  after  one  of  his  gruesome  ser- 
mons, so  unlike  himself,  that  she 
wished  Cjod  were  only  as  good  and 
gentle  as  he;  Our  Master,  in  which 
occur  the  lines: 

"To  do  thy  will  is  more  than  praise, 

As  words  are  less  than  deeds, 
And  simple  trust  can  find  the  ways 
Wc  miss  with  chart  of  creeds." 

But  most  of  all  does  this  depreca- 
tion of  creeds,  as  contrasted  with 
childhke  faith  in  God,  find  expression 
in  that  glorious  poem  of  trust.  The 
Eternal  Goodness. 

With  his  clear  discernment  and 
^iritual  insight  Whittier  saw  that  the 
church,  bound  in  its  fetters  of  creed 
and  doctrine,  needed  a  return  to  a 


freer  and  simpler  faith  and  a  more 
Cliristlike  conduct.  On  its  broader 
and  more  spiritual  ground  he  was  in 
sympathy  with  the  New  Theology.  I 
remember  with  what  appreciation, 
both  of  its  humor  and  its  pathos,  he 
told  me  the  remark  which  Charles 
Kingsley  once  made  to  him,  during 
his  visit  to  this  country,  to  the  effect 
tliat  it  was  an  indescribable  relief  to 
him  (Kingsley)  when  he  found  out 
that  God  is  at  least  as  good  as  the 
average  church  member.  And  yet 
Whittier  was  no  destructionist.  He 
did  not  condemn  any  creed,  nor  any 
man,  that  had  the  least  grain  of  virtue. 
In  My  Namesake  he  speaks  of  him- 
self as  one  who  "reconciled  as  best  he 
could,  old  faith  and  fancies  new." 
This  charity  and  breadth  of  view  ac- 
cords with  the  other  great  principle 
which  animates  all  that  he  wrote, 
namely,  toleration. 

Whittier  was  a  loyal  and  loving 
Quaker,  but  in  spite  of  that  fact  or 
rather  because  of  it,  with  an  insis- 
tence upon  Christian  tolerance  and  fel- 
lowship, he  was  ever  ready  to  extend 
the  right  hand  of  fellowship  to  every 
true  believer  of  whatever  name  or 
sect.  His  definition  of  Quakerism  in 
a  letter  to  Lucy  Larcom  written  in 
1890,  is  as  follows:  "Quakerism  has 
no  church  of  its  own — it  belongs  to 
the  Church  Universal  and  Invisible." 
The  perfume  of  the  spirit  of  tolerance 
and  brotherhood  breathes  through  all 
his  poems  and  is  itself  the  love- 
scented  zephyr  that  wafts  them  over  all 
lands  and  into  all  kindred  hearts.  To 
one  who  knew  that  "Devotion's  pearl 
might  sanctify  the  shell"  no  form  of 
worship  that  was  genuine  seemed  de- 
serving of  ridicule  or  condemnation. 

No  man  looked  forward  with  more 


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50 


THE    UNFORGOTTEN   WHITTIER 


of  iaiith  and  lon^ng  than  John  G. 
Whittier  to  behold 

"One  hope,  one  faith,  one  love,  restore 
The  seamless  robe  that  Jesus  wore." 

This  sympathy  and  charity  of  heart 
which  characterized  the  gentle  poet 
were  extended  to  the  unlovely  and  sin- 
ful as  well  as  the  just  and  good. 
What  could  be  more  delicate  and 
Ipving  than  the  excuse  which  he 
offers  for  the  waywardness  of  the 
dark-eyed  guest  in  "Snow-Bound"? 

•Where'er  her  troubled  path  may  be, 
The   Lord's  sweet  pity  with  her  go! 
The  outward,  wayward  life  we  see, 
The  hidden  springs  we  may  not  know." 

The  gentle  touch  of  compassion  for 
the  fallen  and  the  unloved  is  upon  all 
his  verse.  He  held  that  the  soul,  like 
the  pressed  gentian  in  the  window, 
was  to  be  seen  only  by  the  Eternal 
Eye  "upon  its  inmost  side."  Yet  he 
could  be  severe  too,  overwhelmingly 
severe,  when  it  seemed  to  him  that 
there  was  need  of  it,  as  Ichabod 
illustrates. 

The  reason  for  Whittier's  charity 
lay  in  his  own  deep  humility,  such  a 
Humility  as  led  him  to  write  of  him- 
lelf  in  My  Namesake, 

**While  others  trod  the  altar  stairs 
He  faltered  like  the  publican; 
And,  while  they  praised  as  saints,  his 

prayers 
Were  those  of  sinful  man." 

What  could  be  more  truly  modest  and 
fit  than  the  lines  of  his  Response  to 
the  warm  words  of  honor  and  praise 
spoken  at  the  dinner  given  him  by  his 
publishers,  in  honor  of  his  seventieth 
birthday,  closing, 

"With  not  unglad  surprise 
I  see  my  life-work  through  your  partial 

eyes. 
Assured,  in  giving  to  my  home-taught 

songs 


A  higher  value  than  of  right  belongs. 
You  do  but  read    between    the  written 

lines 
The  finer  grace  of  unfulfilled,  designs." 

Few  have  trodden  closer  to  the  con- 
fines of  the  spirit  world  or  known 
more  of  God  than  Whittier,  and  yet 
his  sense  of  ignorance  and  mystery 
was  intense,  leading  him  to  say  of 
himself, 

"Life's    mystery    wrapped    him    like    a 
cloud; 
He  heard  far  voices  mock  his  own. 
The  sweep  of  wings  unseen,  the  loud. 
Long  roll  of  waves  unknown. 

Like  childhood,  listening  for  the  sound 
Of  its  dropped  pebbles  in  the  well. 
All  vainly  down  the  dark  profound 
His  brief-lined  plummet  fell." 

But,  though  Whittier  may  not  have 
sounded  any  very  profound  depths  of 
philosophic  thought,  he  touched  the 
deeps  of  sentiment  and  devotion. 
Perhaps  the  greatest  service  that  he 
did  was  to  bring  nearer,  and  make 
more  real,  the  human  Christ. 

"But  warm,  sweet,  tender,  even  yet 
A  present  help  is  he; 
And  faith  has  still  its  Olivet, 
And  love  it»  Galilee." 

A  life  of  wondrous  purity,  gentle- 
ness, beneficence  was  that  of  the  be- 
loved Quaker  poet.  It  was  like  the 
beautiful  September  day  on  which  he 
was  laid  at  rest  in  Amesbury  Ceme- 
tery,— clear,  peaceful,  golden.  His 
later  poems,  My  Psalm,  The  Last 
Walk  in  Autumn,  and  others,  and  his 
swan  song,  The  Last  Eve  of  Siunmer, 
reveal  a  gratitude  as  tender  and  de- 
vout as  ever  incarnated  itself  in  words. 
Much  he  saw  for  which  he  had  sung 
and  striven  so  manfully,  completely 
tritunphant.  He  had  felt  the  joy  of 
large  and  immortal  accomplishment. 


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SEPTEMBER 


51 


He  had  received  the  tribute  of  world- 
wide love  and  sympathy, 

"Like  the  odors  blown 
From  unseen  meadows  newly  mown." 

And  he  went  forth,  ladun  with  love 
and  blessing,  with  the  words  of  his 
own  beautiful  and  trustful  At  Last 
in  his  ears,  into 

"The    calm    assurance    of    transcendent 
Spheres 

And  the  Eternal  Years." 


In  the  laurel  wreath  which  his  old- 
time  friend,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes, 
laid  upon  his  grave,  one  leaf,  green 
with  the  unfading  hue  of  love  and 
genius,  well  represents  the  tribute  of 
the  world  to  Whittier: 

"Best  loved  and  saintliest  of  our  singing 
train, 
Earth's  noblest  tributes  to  thy  name 
belong: 
A  lifelong  record  closed  without  a  stain, 
A  blameless  memory  shrined  in  death- 
less song." 


September 


By  Philip  Becker  Goetz 


EVEN  mom  is  fain  to  drowse. 
Mists  within  her  spirit  house; 
All  night  long  the  slender  thread 
Parts  and  drops  the  amber  dead. 
Woe  to  who  trusts  wind  or  wave : 
None  shall  stand  beside  his  grave ! 
Hail  to  who  loves  bounteous  earth, 
Him  whose  orchard  scofiFs  at  dearth. 
Pluck  the  black-eyed  grape  at  will. 
Tarry  not  till  lips  are  chill. 
Worlds  grow  near  in  her  late  light : 
Hers  the  year's  keen  second  sight. 


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A  Flaw  in  the  Title 


By  ElUot  Walker 


W 


'ILL  you  marry  me,  Al- 
thea?" 
"Yes." 
This  all-important  ques- 
tion was  not  unexpected  by  Miss 
Qaridge.  Neither  did  Mr.  Eastlock 
display  an  unusual  amount  of  enthus- 
iasm upon  the  receipt  ot  the  prompt 
and  matter-of-fact  reply. 

Merely  edging  a  trifle  closer  on  the 
sofa,  he  gathered  Althea's  long  fingers 
awkwardly  in  his  own  (an  act  which 
suggested  the  picking  up  of  a  handful 
of  clothespins)  and  imprinted  a  mild 
kiss  of  proprietorship  upon  Miss 
Claridge's  averted  cheek. 

"I'll  get  you  an  engagement  ring 
right  away,"  announced  her  betrothed 
with  an  eye  to  immediately  advertis- 
ing his  bargain. 

"Any  time,"  returned  Althea  placid- 
ly.    "No  'special  hurry,  Augustus." 

She  was  glad  it  was  over.  For 
years,  Mr.  Eastlock  had  aggressively 
run  off  the  field  every  man,  young  or 
old,  who  showed  the  slightest  inclina- 
tion for  the  society  of  Miss  Claridge. 
He  had  not  been  kept  very  busy. 
Many  looked  but  few  lingered. 
Althea  was  simply  an  excellent  finan- 
cial investment.  Beyond  that — well, 
personalities,  like  comparisons,  are 
sometimes  odious. 

Both  understood  the  position  exact- 
ly. Althea  was  thirty-one.  Augustus 
was  fourty-four.  Sentiment  was  to 
them  like  unto  the  vaporings  of  the 
feeble-minded.  Mr.  Eastlock  was  tall, 
52 


pale,  skinny,  shrewd,  abstemious  and 
saving.  Althea  was  his  feminine 
counterpart.  Therefore,  this  agree- 
ment, just  completed,  might  be  truly 
dubbed  a  business  partnership,  the 
capital  to  be  contributed  by  the  female 
member  of  the  firm. 

"I've  thought  of  asking  you  for 
some  time,"  observed  Augustus,  final- 
ly, releasing  her  hand  with  a  mental 
twinge  as  quick  thoughts  of  the  ring 
assailed  his  thrifty  spirit. 

"Yes?"  replied  his  fiancee,  the  ab- 
sence in  her  tone  failing  to  hide  a 
quality  of  acid  sarcasm. 

She  had  just  reached  her  twenty- 
second  summer  when  Mr.  Eastlock's 
attentions  became  marked  to  the  point 
of  conventional  matrimonial  proposi- 
tion. Since  then,  patient  waiting  had 
developed  an  edge  of  temper,  not 
hasty  but  of  cutting  quality.  She 
knew  he  would  speak  some  time.  She 
knew,  as  the  seasons  dragged  by,  that 
she  was  becoming  like  a  sheep  hedged 
in  an  enclosure  for  subsequent  shear- 
ing ;  that  the  world  approved,  that  she 
would  be  safe  with  Augustus,  that 
Life  was  a  practical  measure  of  time 
for  such  women  as  Althea  Qaridge, 
that  the  man  she  would  wed  had 
weighed  every  consideration  carefully, 
that  common-sense  was  said  to  be  his 
portion,  and  that  she  was  perfectly 
willing  to  marry  him. 

She  also  possessed  knowledge  as  yet 
unknown  to  Augustus.  The  fact  that 
with  great  secrecy  and  aided  by  the 


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old  family  lawyer  her  property  had 
been  ingeniously  arranged  under  cer- 
tain iron-clad  trust  regulations,  in 
such  manner  that  it  would  be  ex- 
tremely difficult  for  Augustus  to  get 
hold  of  a  penny.  Althea  might 
facially  and  metaphorically  resemble  a 
sheep, — ^there  the  resemblance  ceased. 
Not  that  she  lacked  confidence  in  her 
future  husband's  integrity.  She  sim- 
ply and  shrewdly  judged  that  as  long 
as  the  family  fortune  remained  entire- 
ly in  her  grasp,  she  would  be  an  ob- 
ject of  interest  to  Augustus — as  well 
as  the  real  head  of  the  establishment. 
Men,  as  keen,  had  been  known  to 
make  serious  mistakes  when  placed  in 
a  position  to  invest  freely,  and  Mr. 
Eastlock,  within  certain  limitations, 
was  somewhat  given  to  an  unholy  de- 
sire for  rapid  acquisition.  Althea  held 
the  nightmare  of  her  departed  Uncle 
William's  experience — he  from  whom 
an  this  wealtfi  had  descended.  Surely, 
no  man  in  Nipperfield  was  accounted 
the  equal  of  Uncle  William  in  a  trade, 
yet  he  had  "met  a  stranger"  and  been 
"taken  in"  with  a  lamentable  reversal 
of  the  original  text.  People  failed  to 
comprehend  how  Uncle  William  could 
have  been  so  frightfully  "gulled"  as  to 
purchase  a  gold  mine  in  Connecticut 
upon  the  representations  of  that 
smooth  Mr.  Dickerman  and  his  array 
of  glittering  samples  and  figures,  but 
criticism  is  easy  after  disaster. 
"Salted"  was  a  word  cautiously  used 
in  the  presence  of  Uncle  William 
after  his  loss  had  been  thoroughly 
figured  up.  Even  in  the  household 
where  extraordinary  economy  pre- 
vailed during  the  two  years  ensuing, 
Althea  and  her  Aunt  Lily  (a  sad 
misnomer)  discreetly  adopted  the  use 
of  "savored"  and  "seasoned"  at  the 


table  in  consideration  of  the  unhappy 
investor's  appetite  and,  incidentally, 
temper,  which  grew  choleric  toward 
the  end. 

Notwithstanding  that  Uncle  Wil- 
liam by  diligent  application  to  the 
hardware  business  and  an  almost  cruel 
reduction  of  general  expenses,  com- 
pletely restored  this  rent  in  his  sub- 
stantial substance,  the  mortification 
was  commonly  supposed  to  have  has- 
tened his  demise  which  occurred  just 
after  Althea's  twenty-eighth  birthday. 
Uncle  William  was  a  magnificent 
example  of  the  church  pillar,  six  feet 
in  height  and  weighing  two  hundred 
and  eighty  pounds  on  his  own  selling 
scales. 

Three  years  after,  the  relict  fol- 
lowed him  to  those  happy  boundaries 
where  "thieves  do  not  break  through 
and  steal,"  and  the  orphaned  niece, 
who  up  to  this  date  had  been  little 
more  than  a  household  drudge,  found 
herself  a  woman  of  wealth  with  a 
penurious  disposition  to  retain  her 
property  intact.  Another  year  and 
Augustus  sat  upon  the  stem  haircloth 
lounge  with  a  satisfied  smirk  in  full 
appreciation  of  having  at  last  brought 
himself  to  open  declaration.  Accept- 
ance, he  knew,  would  be  his.  Althea 
was  virtually  committed  in  advance. 
He,  and  he  alone,  had  stood  in  public 
and  private  comment,  for  six  long 
years,  as  the  man  who  eventually 
would  marry  Althea  Claridge,  and 
that  meant  the  furtherance  of  certain 
interests  dear  to  his  heart  and  entirely 
separate  from  the  sentimental. 

Augustus,  too,  was  glad  it  was  over. 
For  a  long  time  the  thought  of  exist- 
ence with  Althea  had  been  a  distress- 
ing reflection.  Like  all  men  he  ad- 
mired beauty  in  woman.    Skin  deep 


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though  it  be,  it  is  a  powerful  factor 
in  determining  futures,  and  Althea 
was, — ^well — Nature  had  been  unfair. 
But  the  love  of  money  outweighs 
petty  attractions,  especially  as  men 
find  themselves  passing  into  that 
period  when  hints  of  the  burden  of 
"the  grasshopper"  and  painful  indica- 
tions of  the  ceasing  of  "the  grinders" 
stimulate  the  sordid  soul  to  the  value 
of  material  possessions,  and  with  this 
comes  to  selfish  natures  an  insensate 
dislike  of  Youth  and  Love  and  the 
Beautiful. 

The  appointed  time  had  arrived  and 
the  outlook  to  Mr,  Eastlock  was  satis- 
factory. Those  days  when  he  had 
thought  he  might  get  along  without 
Althea  were  now  but  a  dream  to  be 
sneered  at.  His  steady  little  business, 
thriftily  conducted,  had  brought  him 
a  living,  a  reputation  for  ability,  and 
a  few  "rainy  day"  dollars.  That  was 
all.  It  was  insufficient.  He  had  now 
done  something  worth  while,  and  the 
next  step  must  not  be  delayed.  The 
inflected  "yes"  of  his  companion  did 
not  agreeably  tickle  his  ear.  He  had 
kept  her  waiting  a  very  long  time; 
that,  he  knew.  Had  she  been  a 
women  to  invite  even  the  smallest  at- 
tention from  others  Augustus  would 
have  stepped  in  with  promptitude  and 
made  sure  of  her.  As  it  was,  after  the 
first  year,  he  felt  secure.  He  hung 
along,  pretty  evenly  balanced  between 
a  strong  desire  for  Althea's  money, 
and  an  equally  powerful  disinclina- 
tion to  saddle  himself  with  its  owner. 

The  unattractive  heiress,  being 
quite  aware  of  this,  by  some  strange 
feminine  perversion,  had  decided  to 
ultimately  become  Mrs.  Eastlock,  if 
she  waited  twenty  years.  Yet,  all  this 
delay  had  not  served  to  sweeten  her 


disposition,  and  worse,  an  evil  desire 
to  make  life  rather  unpleasant  for 
Augustus  had  taken  root  in  a  sense  of 
unfair  treatment  and,  nourished  by 
a  natural  spirit  of  resentment,  was  al- 
ready an  impetus  to  disagreement. 

Much  may  be  forgiven  Althea,  and 
much  must  be  understood.  Adopted 
at  the  tender  age  of  five,  she  wore 
spectacles  at  eight,  did  nearly  all  the 
lighter  labor  of  the  house  at  twelve, 
and  lived  drearily,  with  little  educa- 
tion and  no  childish  pleasures,  sur- 
rounded ever  by  an  atmosphere  of 
frugality  and  prudence,  until  it  became 
second  nature  to  regard  a  penny  with 
a  view  to  its  longest  possible  reten- 
tion. The  means,  now  in  her  hands, 
held  out  no  promise  of  purchasable 
happiness.  Uncle  William's  money — 
Uncle  William's  precepts — ^they  were 
indissoluble.  Her  duty  was  clear. 
Had  she  not  a  comfortable  home,  a 
plain  but  sufficient  wardrobe,  and  a 
servant  girl  ?  These  were  necessities. 
Beyond  a  certain  sum  annually  set 
aside  for  defined  charities,  the  income 
must  not  be  further  invaded,  but 
added  to  the  capital,  and  at  the  end — 
well,  there  was  Augustus,  besides 
plenty  of  other  excellent  subjects  for 
endowment.  It  was  a  good  way  to 
live — satisfying  to  both  conscience 
and  habit. 

The  kiss  of  Mr.  Eastlock  brought 
no  blush  to  her  sallow  visage.  His 
clawing  clutch  at  her  fingers  stirred 
no  emotion.  The  ring — ^that  appealed 
in  a  way.  She  had  never  worn  a  ring. 
Augustus  ought  to  get  a  good  one — 
a  valuable  stone — a  thing  to  treasure 
for  its  intrinsic  value — an  addition  to 
property. 

"When  you  do  buy  a  ring,  be  sure 
that  the  diamond  hasn't  a  flaw  in  it," 


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she  remarked  in  an  advisory  tono. 
"Sometimes  experts  even  get  fooled, 
I've  heard.  You  should  be  able  to 
procure  a  very  nice  one  for  a  hundred 
ddlars." 

"A  diamond !  A  hundred  dollars !" 
Augustus  gasped  audibly.  His  vague 
idea  of  this  token  had  ranged  as  high 
as  an  inexpensive  gold  circlet  with  a 
garnet,  price  $7.25.  This  ornament 
he  had  seen  in  a  window.  Surely  it 
would  be  good  enough  for  Althea. 

The  lady  observed  the  gasp  and 
turned  a  quick  eye  upon  the  face  be- 
side her.  "What's  the  matter?"  she 
inquired  acidly. 

"Nothing,"  responded  Mr.  East- 
lock,  compressing  his  lips. 

"Oh !"  A  bit  of  color  stole  in  the 
thin  cheeks.  A  faint  sensation  of 
revulsion  crept  around  Althea's  heart. 
For  a  moment  she  could  have  struck 
Augustus.  •  The  idea !  Here  he  was, 
her  affianced,  with  at  least  the  posi- 
tion of  a  man  about  to  be  associated 
with  her  thousands — ^that  status  alone 
would  render  him  of  importance  in 
the  community,  and  writhing  at  the 
thought  of  this,  her  first  request.  He 
could  afford  it,  and  it  was  only  an  in- 
vestment. Never  before  had  this 
queer  disg^ist  of  wealth  oppressed 
her.    Were  men  as  mean  as  that? 

Behind  the  silver-rimmed  spectacles 
the  eyes  of  Althea  glittered.  "I  guess 
well  set  our  wedding  day  six  months 
from  now,"  she  said  coldly.  "That 
will  suit  me.  Six  years  it's  taken  you 
to  make  up  your  mind;  six  months 
will  give  you  time  to  pick  out  such  a 
ring  as  I  want.  I'm  going  to  lie 
down  now.  Come  over  to-morrow 
night" 

She  swept  out  of  the  parlor  with  an 
unusual  erectness,  tmheeding  the  pro- 


test of  Augustus.  "Hold  on!  I'll 
get  your  ring  right  off,  Althea.  I — I 
didn't  say  anything." 

But  he  was  speaking  to  the  por- 
traits of  Uncle  William  and  Aunt 
Lily,  for  Althea  had  slainmed  a  door 
behind  her,  and  feeling  abused,  he 
slowly  made  his  way  out. 

"She's  too  old  for  g^w-gaws,"  he 
commented  angrily,  marching  down 
the  road.  "It's  ridiculous!  Well, 
I'll  humor  her.  To-morrow  I'll  drive 
over  to  Whipville  and  do  some  pric- 
ing. I  can  buy  cheaper  there.  Not  a 
cent  over  fifty  dollars  do  I  go  though." 

Althea  was  standing  before  her  mir- 
ror, gazing  with  considerable  satisfac- 
tion at  her  red  cheeks  and  the  bril- 
liance of  her  eyes.  "It's  quite  becom- 
ing to  get  mad,"  she  ruminated.  "I 
enjoy  the  feeling  too.  Going  to  get 
married,  Althea,  eh?  And  to  a  man 
that  begrudges.  Maybe  Augustus 
will  find  I  can  do  some  begrudging 
myself.  Oh!  I  suppose  we  will  get 
along  all  right,  but  I  half  wish  I  was 
out  of  it.  Too  late  now,  though,  and 
he's  a  good  safe  man,  if  he  is  stingy." 

It  had  never  occurred  to  Miss 
Claridge  that  some  might  have  called 
her  stingy.  To  herself  she  was  pru- 
dent, as  every  woman  should  be. 

"It's  all  money,"  she  went  on. 
"Dear  me !  There  is  a  kind  of  povy- 
ty  in  being  rich,  after*  all.  I've  got 
comforts  and  Augustus  don't  seem 
really  the  sum  of  human  happiness, 
but  it's  all  I  ever  expected  and  all  I'll 
ever  get." 

Her  mocking  smile  faded  pitifully, 
and  her  head  shook  with  a  sorrowful 
motion.  "What  ails  you?"  she  asked 
herself  crossly.  "He's  going  lo  be 
your  husband.  You've  expected  it 
ever    since    Auntie    died.     He    has. 


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Everybody  has.     What  more  do  you 
want?" 

Suddenly  her  rocking  chair  received 
her  with  a  thump,  and  the  thin  fingers 
went  over  her  eyes.  "I  can't  help  it — 
I — don't  want  him,"  sobbed  Althea. 
"He's — he's  mean!'' 

Bright  and  blue  was  the  September 
sky ;  sweetly  the  late  birds  twittered  in 
the  turning  foliage  along  the  Whip- 
ville  road,  as  Althea  Claridge,  taking 
her  regular  afternoon  walk,  strolled 
on  in  the  blaze  of  the  hot  autumn  sun. 
It  was  warm — very  warm,  and  the 
pedestrian  hastened  her  steps  a  trifle 
at  sight  of  the  great  elm  by  the  road- 
side. There  in  its  shade  she  would 
sit  on  the  stone  wall  to  re^t  and  cool 
off. 

Her  night  had  been  sleepless,  her 
morning  restless.  Now,  a  mile  from 
home,  in  spite  of  heat  and  fatigue, 
calmer  thoughts  possessed  her  uneasy 
soul,  as  the  balm  of  Nature  salved  her 
troubled  spirit.  "After  all,  she  was 
foolish  to  think  so  hardly  of  Augus- 
tus. That  evening  he  would  come 
in,  and  probably  upon  seeing  him 
this  new  feeling  of  repugnance 
would  depart  entirely.  All  men 
were  alike,  and  he  was  as  desirable 
as  any." 

So,  pondering,  she  came  to  her  tree 
and  paused  in  astonishment  and  trepi- 
dation. With  his  back  against  the 
trunk  sat  a  man — a  flushed,  bare- 
headed, corpulent  man,  respectably  at- 
tired and  evidently  no  common  way- 
farer. His  hands  were  clasped,  his 
big  blue  eyes  distended,  and  the  gen- 
eral aspect  of  his  countenance  and  at- 
titude indicative  of  utter  despair. 
Rolling  his  distressed  gaze  upon  Al- 
thea, he  blinked  for  a  moment  and  two 


great  tears  trickled  down  his  round, 
clean  shaven  cheeks. 

The  first  impulse  of  Miss  Claridge 
was  to  beat  a  retreat.  The  next  to 
laugh.  Instinct  assured  her  that  the 
stranger  was  harmless.  She  took  a 
forward  step  and  looked  at  him  in- 
quisitively. The  man  grinned  dis- 
mally. 

"Don't  be  scared,"  he  whispered. 
"I'll  be  all  right  in  a  minute." 

"Hurt?"  inquired  Althea. 

"Robbed!"  came  the  deep  and  sol- 
emn response.  "By  Mighty !  It's  too 
bad."  He  rose  clumsily  and  shook 
himself — ^a  large,  heavy  creature,  sug- 
gestive of  great  strength. 

"Robbed!"  echoed  the  woman, 
startled.     "Where?    How?" 

"Right  here,  marm,  right  under  this 
tree.  I  was  asleep.  They  never 
touched  my  watch.  It  was  my  purse." 
He  groaned  pathetically  and  sniffed. 

Althea  was  not  devoid  of  the 
humorous  sense.  The  sight  of  so 
huge  a  person  upon  the  verge  of  tears 
brought  a  smile  to  her  prim  lips. 

"You  wouldn't  laugh  if  you  knew, ' 
said  the  man  reproachfully.  "It  ain't 
funny!"  His  voice  trembled  and 
broke. 

"Come!"  snapped  Miss  Claridge, 
smartly,  to  hide  a  strange  feeling  of 
sudden  sympathy.  "You  don't  seem 
to  be  injured.    Why  cry  about  it?" 

"Was  I?"  returned  her  stalwart 
companion,  innocently.  "Maybe  I  did 
start  a  drop,  thinking  of  them.  Don't 
care  if  I  did.  Hurt?  No!  Little 
I'd  mind  thumps.  Bless  my  soul,  but 
it's  hard  luck." 

Picking  up  his  hat,  he  looked  rue- 
fully at  Althea.  "Nothing  to  do  but 
tramp  back,"  came  a  woeful  groan. 
"Thank  the  Lord  they'll  never  know." 


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Curiosity  began  to  stir  Miss  Clar- 
idge. 

"I'm  going  to  sit  here  awhile,"  sh? 
announced.  "Why  not  tell  me  about 
it?  Possibly  I  can  help  you — not 
with  money  though,"  was  her  hasty 
addition. 

She  mounted  the  rickety  wall  and 
the  despoiled  one  stepped  nearer,  peer- 
ing thoughtfully  in  her  face. 

"I  declare  it  will  do  me  good,  1 
guess,"  he  said  after  a  long  scrutiny. 
"Ill  stand;  those  stones  won't  hold 
my  weight.  My  name  is  Hiram  Piper 
and  I  live  in  Whipville." 

Miss  Claridge  nodded  encourag- 
ingly. 

"And  I  can  see  you're  a  good,  kind 
woman,"  went  on  Mr.  Piper,  twirling 
his  hat.  "You  remind  me,  yes,  you 
really  do — I'll  bet  you  are  like  her — 
same  nice  gray-colored  eyes  and  a  lit- 
tle sorry  droop  to  your  mouth." 

Althea  sat  up  straighter, 

"Yes,  marm,"  continued  the  man, 
"I'd  trust  you  anywhere,  and  I'm 
going  to  tell  you  all  about  it." 

"Go  ahead,"  replied  his  listener, 
biting  her  lip.  "How  much  did  you 
loser 

"One  hundred  and  eight  dollars  and 
twenty-two  cents."  Mr.  Piper  wiped 
his  brow.  "It  was  all  I  had  in  th:* 
bank,  except  a  dollar  I  left  to  keep  my 
account  open.  I  drew  it  all.  Thinks 
I,  'Hiram,  you're  a  big  husky  chap 
with  a  paying  job.'  I'm  a  boss  in  a 
factory,  marm.  Take  it  all,'  says  I 
to  myself.  'Sim's  wife  and  his  little 
ones  need  it  and  it's  what  Patience 
would  like  you  to  do.  You've  no  one 
depending — ^and  can  make  more. 
Take  it  all,'  says  I,  and  I  did." 

"Who  is  Sim's  wife?" 

"Why,  Simeon  Catlin's  widow  and 


two  little  girls.  Sim  I  knew  well,  and 
Patience  knew  him  too.  A  year  ago 
he  got  killed  on  the  railroad,  and  Mrs. 
Catlin  moved  to  Nipperfield.  They 
have  had  a  hard  time.  Only  yester- 
day morning  I  got  a  letter  from  her 
asking  if  I  could  help  her  a  bit.  Could 
I?  Well,  it  didn't  take  me  long  to 
figure  up.  Poor  thing!  Behind  in 
her  rent,  no  work  and  nothing  to  eat. 
I'll  find  a  way  yet  if  I  have  to  borrow." 

Althea  stared  at  him.  "Patience?'' 
she  inquired.     "Who  is  she?" 

"She  was,  marm,  Mrs.  Piper,  you 
know."  His  eyes  lowered  reverently. 
"Three  years  now  since  God  took  her. 
Dear  me!  Dear  me!  The  best  wo- 
man you  ever  saw — the  very  best,"  he 
said  softly.  "She  just  lived  and  died 
helping.  Why,  I  used  to  laugh  at 
her.  Tatty,'  I'd  say,  'you're  giving 
away  the  very  clothes  off  my  back. 
How'll  I  ever  lay  up  a  cent,'  I'd  say, 
'  with  your  trying  to  keep  every  poor 
critter  clothed  and  fed?'  *We  will  get 
along,'  she  would  atiswer  me  always 
so  cheerful,  and  I  could  never  say 
'No'  to  her,  for  she  was  right.  We 
did  get  along,  and  I  got  as  bad  as  she 
was  about  doing  for  folks.  And  since 
she  died.  I've  been  worse.  Patty's  the 
one  you  remind  me  of,  and  that's  why 
I'm  talking  about  her.    I  don't  often." 

The  woman  on  the  wall  shivered  in 
the  warm  air  and  looked  down. 

"She  wasn't  what  a  body  would  call 
handsome,"  resumed  Mr.  Piper. 
"You  ain't  hardly  that,  begging  your 
pardon,  but  beside  her  you  would  pass 
for  a  fine  looking  lady.  To  me  she 
was  beautiful,  for  I  never  noticed  any- 
thing but  the  goodness  in  her  and  the 
shine  in  her  face  when  she  was  help- 
ing. And,  as  I  say,  you  kind  of  bring 
her     back.     B^     pardon!     Hope     I 

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A   FLAW    IN    THE   TITLE 


didn't  say  something  to  hurt  your 
feelings." 

"No,  no,"  said  Althea  Qaridge. 
thickly,  her  glance  on  the  ground. 

"You've  got  sympathy  in  you,  that's 
what,  but  I  won't  be  telling  you  things 
about  her,"  proceeded  Mr.  Piper. 
"Let  me  get  back  to  what  a  fool  I  was. 
Now,  see  what  I  did.  Drew  my 
money  and  hoofed  it  over  instead  of 
hiring  a  team.  Thinks  I :  'Get  the  af- 
ternoon off,  walk  it,  and  save  three 
dollars.  That  will  buy  'em  a  Thanks- 
giving dinner,  and  the  exercise  won't 
hurt  you.'  So  on  I  came,  and  never 
was  I  happier  than  jogging  along, 
thinking  of  Patience  and  Sim's  wife, 
and  what  a  surprise  I  was  going  to 
give,  and  how  'twould  knock  all  their 
worries  sky  high. 

"But  I'm  pretty  fat,  and  it  was  awful 
hot,  and  when  I  got  to  this  tree,  I 
plumped  down  for  a  breathing  spell. 
I  took  out  my  pocket-book  and 
counted  the  money — there  was  a  twen- 
ty dollar  bill  in  the  roll,  and  \tasn't  it 
funny,  some  feller  had  owned  it,  and 
in  one  corner  were  his  initials,  *H.  P.' 
same  as  mine.  I  s'pose  he  thought  he 
might  see  it  again  some  day.  I  re- 
member shutting  my  eyes  with  the 
purse  in  my  hand,  and  thinking  how 
sweet  the  green  things  smelled,  and 
the  next  thing  I  knew  I  was  rubbing 
my  fool  peepers  and  the  wallet  was 
gone.     Some  tramp,  probably. 

"That's  all.  It  would  have  paid  me 
to  drive,  wouldn't  it?  Well,  no  use 
moaning  over  it.  Back  I  go  and  sell 
my  watch  and  chain.  Sim's  wife  is 
going  to  be  helped  out,  I  tell  you  that, 
marm.  Good  day,  and  much  obliged 
for  listening.  It's  done  me  a  power 
of  good  to  just  talk  and  have  some 
one  kind  of  sympathize.    The  minute 


I  saw  you,  thinks  I,  'She's  one  to  feel 
bad  for  other  people's  troubles,'  and  I 
wasn't  mistaken." 

"Wait!"  cried  Althea,  clambering 
down,  "Wait,  Mr.  Piper.  I — I  can 
help  a  little.  I — yes — I — oh !  I  can- 
not stand  it.  If  you  will  walk  with 
me  to  the  corner  of  Dean  Street  and 
stay  there  for  ten  minutes,  you  shall 
have  something  for  those  poor  peo- 
ple." 

"But,"  her  companion  looked  at  her 
gravely,  "are  you  sure  you  can  aflford 
it?    I  don't  want—" 

"I  can — yes,"  pulling  at  his  arm. 
"Come!    Hurry!" 

When  Miss  Claridge  handed  him 
the  sealed  envelope,  her  spectacles 
were  very  dim.  "Don't  open  it  yet," 
she  said  softly.  "You  haven't  lost 
much  and  I  have  gained  a  great  deal. 
I  want  to  shake  your  hand." 

Perhaps  the  man's  great  heart 
throbbed  in  his  palm  at  that  moment. 
The  warm,  grateful  clasp  thrilled  up 
Althea's  slender  fingers,  surged  to 
every  nerve  with  a  magnetic  touch, 
and  caught  the  words  in  her  throat, 
changing  her  prim  farewell  to  a 
strange  sob  of  bewilderment. 

Mr.  Piper  winked  rapidly.  "I  work 
at  the  Whipville  Brass  Factory,"  he 
murmured.  "If  you  ever  come  over 
there,  do  let  me  know.  I'll  pay  you 
back  all  this.  Miss — Miss — ?" 

"I  can't  give  you  my  name  now," 
whispered  the  woman.  "Some  time  I 
will.  Yes,  I  hope  to  meet  you  again, 
Mr.  Piper." 

"God  bless  you  forever,"  said 
Hiram,  huskily,  and  turned  away. 

"Here  is  your  ring,  Althea,"  ob- 
served Augustus  that  evening.  "I 
bought  it  this  afternoon  at  Whipville, 


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A   FLAW   IN    THE   TITLE 


59 


— ^Johnson's  store.  A  queen  couldn't 
find  fault  with  it.  Why  the  price  was 
a  hundred  and  twenty-five.  I  beat 
'em  down  though  to  a  hundred  and 
eight.  Drove  over  on  purpose.  I 
happened  to  have  just  enough  in  bills 
and  wasn't  obliged  to  get  a  check 
cashed,  but  I  thought  Fd  never  get 
'em  to  my  price.  Ain't  it  a  beauty?" 
"Lovely,"  aras  wered  Al  thea,  strange- 

"Try  it  on." 

"Let's  wait  until  Sunday,  Augustus. 
It's — it's  good  luck,  you  know." 

"Is  it?  Never  heard  that.  Well! 
whatever  suits  you."  He  was  very 
smiling.  "By  the  way,  my  dear,  1 
guess  we  won't  wait  six  months  to  be 
married.  January  first  I'm  to  be 
elected  a  director  in  the  Street  Rail- 
way Company  and  we  will  have  to 
take  stock,  you  know.  Th6  invest- 
ment is  excellent,  perfectly  safe.  A 
few  thousand,  Althea — that's  all.  To 
be  in  your  name,  of  course." 

"My  funds  are  all  invested.  I  don't 
see  how  I  can  let  you  have  anything." 

"What!" 

"Come  on  Sunday.  I  can  tell  bet- 
ter then,"  gasped  Althea,  and  fainted 
dead  away,  while  the  brilliant  fell 
from  her  hand  to  lie  glittering  upon 
the  carpet. 

The  next  morning,  Saturday,  Miss 
Qaridge  was  driven  to  Whipville  and 
remained  until  night.  Upon  her  re- 
turn she  paid  the  driver  of  the  hired 
vehicle,  and  gave  him  scwne  instruc- 
tions in  a  low  tone.  The  man  nodded 
and  drove  away  from  the  old-fash- 
ioned dwelling  with  a  queer  smile. 
Then  Althea,  with  the  face  of  a  ghost, 
went  in  and  to  her  chamber.  She  sat 
for  a  long  time  without  taking  off  her 
bonnet,   watching    the    light  from  a 


chandelier  playing  upon  something 
which  gleamed  and  sparkled  as  it  was 
twisted  between  her  thumb  and  fore- 
finger. Afterward  she  had  a  cup  of 
tea  and  retired.  Her  servant  re- 
marked that  Miss  "Althy"  acted  all 
played  out.  The  mistress  said  she 
was,  and  should  not  attend  church  in 
the  morning — ^an  unusual  departure 
from  grace. 

When  Augustus  Eastlock  called  on 
Sunday  afternoon,  he  found  her  sit- 
ting in  the  parlor,  a  gloomy  apart- 
ment at  best  with  its  dark  furnishings 
and  the  severe  representations  of 
Uncle  William  and  Aunt  Lily  chaper- 
oning every  movement  with  painted 
but  lifelike  orbs.  Althea  held  her 
hands  in  her  lap  and  rubbed  them  ner- 
vously. 

"Sit  down,"  she  invited. 

Mr.  Eastlock  sat.  An  indefinable 
chill  seemed  to  emanate  from  .the  stiff 
figure  confronting  him.  He  hitched 
in  his  chair.  "Hope  you  are  feeling 
all  right  again,"  said  he,  graciously. 
"AJthea,  you  mustn't  be  so  nervous 
and  cranky  with  me.  It's  no  way  to 
begin.  I'm  expecting  to  advise  you 
about  your  money,  of  course.  It'll  be 
my  duty  as  a  husband.  Where's  your 
ring?" 

"Here!"  holding  it  off  at  arm's 
length. 

"Let  me  put  it  on  your  finger," 
starting  to  rise. 

"Sit  still,  Augustus.  I'm  nervous 
and  cranky,  am  I  ?  Well,  things  have 
upset  me,  lately.  I've  something  to 
say  to  you." 

"Go  ahead,"  returned  Mr.  Eastlcck, 
wrinkling  his  nose. 

"Well,  this  ring  won't  suit  me. 
There's  a  flaw  in  it." 

"A  flaw  in  it!"    Augustus  jumped. 


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A   FLAW   IN   THE   TITLE 


"Yes,  I  discovered  it  and  went  over 
to  Whipville  to  Johnson's  store  to  see 
about  it." 

"What's  the  trouble?  He  swore  it 
was  a  perfect  stone,"  cried  Eastlock 
in  heat. 

"The  flaw  is  in  the  title,  Augustus. 
There  has  a  warrant  been  issued  for 
the  man  who  bought  it.  You  answer 
his  description,  Augustus.  The  money 
paid  for  this  ring  was  stolen  from  a 
poor  man  who  fell  asleep  by  the  road- 
side, and  you  were  the  thief,  Augus- 
tus.   That's  the  trouble." 

Mr.  Eastlock  sat  as  one  paralyzed 
for  a  moment.  Then  he  laughed, — 
a  hollow  sound.  "It's — it's  a  lie!"  he 
stammered. 

"Come  in!"  called  Miss  Claridge, 
sharply,  and  a  big  man,  wearing  an 
expression  of  wonder,  stepped  into  the 
room. 

"Ever  see  him  before,  Augustus?" 
inquired  the  lady,  freezingly. 

"I — I  never  laid  eyes  on  him — so 
help  me — "  Mr.  Eastlock  was  very 
pale  and  his  tongue  ran  over  his  lower 

lip. 

"This  your  bill,  Mr.  Piper?"  said 
Althea  calmly,  holding  out  a  bank 
note.  "Do  you  recognize  these  ini- 
tials in  the  comer?" 

It's  mine,  sure.  It's  the  same," 
exclaimed  Mr.  Piper,  joyfully.  "Now, 
how  in  the  name  of  goodness — " 


"No  matter,  now,  my  friend.  Au- 
gustus, do  you  wish  to  stay  any 
longer?  I  am  going  to  let  you  go. 
Here,  take  this  bauble !"  She  flung  it 
at  him  fiercely;  "Take  it  back.  Til 
hush  up  proceedings  for  the  sake  of 
old  times.  Go  quickly,  or  this  gentle- 
man will  assist  you." 

Eastlock,  with  a  corpse-like  visage, 
picked  up  the  ring,  shot  a  wild  glance 
at  his  accuser,  and  crawled  out. 

Then  Althea  did  a  curious  thing. 
Stepping  over  to  where  Mr.  Piper 
stood,  she  held  out  both  hands  and 
the  man  grasped  them.  "Will  you 
take  care  of  me  ?"  she  said,  pleadingly, 
and  burst  into  tears. 

There  used  to  be  a  man  named 
Eastlock  in  Nipperfield,  but  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Piper  never  speak  of  him.  The 
big  President  of  the  Street  Railway 
is  pretty  easy  going,  but  capable, 
and  every  one  has  a  good  word  far 
him. 

People  wondered  at  the  queer 
match,  and  some  are  wondering  now 
why  Althea  should  take  so  much  in- 
terest in  the  widow  Catlin  and  be  edu- 
cating her  children. 

But  Mrs.  Piper  is  a  very  generou.s 
woman,  and  no  one  can  tell  what  she 
may  do  next.  Her  husband  says  he 
never  knew  but  one  to  beat  her  and 
that  was  his  first  wife. 


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The  Geographies  of  Our  Forefathers 


By  Clifton  Johnson 


THE  old-time  geographies, 
until  nearly  the  middle  of 
the  last  century,  were 
never  larger  than  i2mos, 
and  some  of  them  were  diminutive 
32mos.  Up  to  1820  they  were 
as  a  rule  bound  in  full  leather, 
but  occasionally  the  wood  or  binder's 
board  of  the  sides  was  covered 
with  dull  blue,  or  marbled  paper. 
Buff-tinted  papers  with  the  title  and 
more  or  less  other  printing  on  them 
were  substituted  on  nearly  all  the 
later  books.  Illustrations  also  began 
to  be  used,  at  first  sparingly,  but  soon 
very  generously ;  and  instead  of  being 
designed  for  the  older  pupils  the 
boc^s  were  made  with  special  refer- 
ence to  the  needs  of  the  younger 
children. 

For  a  score  of  years  after  geograph- 
ies began  to  be  introduced  into  the 
schools  they  depended  largely  on  the 
use  of  a  globe  to  make  clear  the  divi- 
sions of  the  earth.  It  was  not  long, 
however,  before  nearly  every  book  was 
accompanied  by  an  atlas,  and  this  con- 
tinued customary  to  about  1850. 
Not  many  of  these  atlases  have  sur- 
vived. They  were  flimsily  made,  with 
paper  covers,  and  the  wear  and  tear 
of  daily  use  made  an  end  of  them. 
The  usual  size  was  either  about  six 
by  nine  inches  or  nine  by  eleven 
inches.  Comparatively  little  color  was 
used  on  the  maps,  and  even  at  their 
newest  the  atlases  must  have  looked 
dull  and  uninteresting.  To  modern 
eyes  the  oddest  features  of  the  maps 


are  the  vacant  or  mistaken  outlines  of 
the  northern  coasts  of  this  continent, 
and  the  general  blankness  of  all  its 
western  portion,  with  Mexico  making 
a  great  sweep  up  into  the  present  do- 
mains of  our  republic.  Some  of  the 
African  maps,  too,  are  given  a  strange 
appearance  by  the  portrayal  of  an  inv 
mense  line  of  mountains — the  "J^bbel 
Kumra  or  Mts.  of  the  Moon" — ex- 
tending in  a  continuous  and  perfectly 
straight  chain  from  east  to  west  entire- 
ly across  the  broadest  part  of  the  con- 
tinent. 

Jedidiah  Morse  was  the  pioneer 
among  American  authors  of  school 
geographies,  as  I  have  explained  in  a 
previous  article.  The  earliest  rival  to 
contest  the  field  with  Morse's  books 
was  a  small  volume  of  questions 
and  answers  compiled  by  Nathaniel 
Dwight  and  published  at  Hartford  in 
1795.  Below  are  some  of  the  curious 
bits  of  information  the  volume  im- 
parts: 

Q.  What  are  the  Russian  funeral  cere- 
monies? 

A.  They  are  singular:  The  priest  prays, 
and  sprinkles  the  corpse  for  eight  or  ten 
days;  it  is  then  buried  with  a  passport  to 
heaven,  signed  by  the  bishop  and  another 
clergyman,  which  is  put  between  the  fingers 
of  the  deceased,  and  then  the  people  re- 
turn to  the  house  whence  they  went,  and 
drown  their  sorrow  in  intoxication.  This 
they  commonly  do  for  about  forty  days, 
during  which  time  the  priest  says  prayers 
over  the  grave. 

Q.    Are  there  any  lakes  in  Scotland? 

A.  There  are  many;  but  two  are  very 
remarkable:  One  near  Lochness  is  on  the 

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THE   GEOGRAPHIES   OF 


top  of  a  hill  almost  two  miles  high.  This 
lake  is  small,  but  it  has  never  been 
sounded,  nor  does  it  ever  freeze.  About 
seventeen  miles  distant  is  another  lake 
which  is  frozen  all  the  year. 

Q.  What  arc  the  persons  and  characters 
of  the  Scots? 

A.  They  arc  generally  lean,  raw-boned, 
and  have  high  cheek-bones,  which  is  a 
characteristical    feature. 

Q.  What  are  the  diversions  of  the 
Scots? 

A.  They  are  all  of  the  vigorous,  athletic 
kind;  such  as  dancing,  golf  and  curling. 
The  golf  is  a  species  of  ball-playing  per- 
formed with  a  bat  and  a  ball,  the  extremity 
of  the  bat  being  loaded  with  lead,  and  the 
party  which  strikes  the  ball  with  fewest 
strokes  into  a  hole  prepared  for  the  pur- 
pose wins  the  game. 

Q.  What  are  the  customs  and  diversions 
of  the  Irish? 

A.  There  are  a  few  customs  existing  in 
Ireland  peculiar  to  this  country.  These  are 
their  funeral  bowlings  and  presenting  their 
corpses  in  the  streets  to  excite  the  charity 
of  strangers,  their  convivial  meetings  on 
Sunday,  and  dancing  to  bag-pipes,  which 
are  usually  attended  with  quarreling. 

Q.-   What  curiosities  are  there  in  France  ? 

A.  A  fountain  near  Grenoble  emits  a 
flame  which  will  bum  paper,  straw,  etc., 
but  will  not  bum  gun-powder.  Within 
about  eight  leagues  of  the  same  place  is  an 
inaccessible  mountain  in  the  form  of  a 
pyramid  reversed. 

Q.  What  curiosities  are  there  in  Portu- 
gal? 

A.  There  are  lakes  into  which  a  stone 
being  cast  causes  a  mmbling  like  the  noise 
of  an  earthquake. 

Q.  What  do  you  observe  of  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Guinea? 

A.  They  are  chiefly  pagans  and  idol- 
aters. In  Eyo.  where  the  people  are  gfov- 
erned  by  a  king  who  is  not  absolute,  when 
they  are  tired  of  him,  a  deputation  waits  on 
him  and  informs  him  that  it  is  fatiguing 
for  him  to  bear  the  burden  of  government 
any  longer,  advising  him  to  take  a  little 
rest.  He  thanks  them  and  retires  to  his 
apartment  as  if  to  sleep,  and  directs  his 
women  to  strangle  him;  and  after  he  ex- 
pires they  destroy  all  things  which  be- 
longed to  him  or  to  themselves,  and  then 


kill  one  another.  His  son  succeeds  to  the 
government,  and  on  the  same  terms. 

Q.  Give  a  concise  description  of  the 
Giages  and  Annians? 

A.  The  first  inhabit  a  part  of  the  Congo 
coast;  the  latter  live  in  the  Macaco.  The 
people  are  cannibals.  They  kill  and  eat 
their  first-born  children;  and  their  friends 
who  die  are  eaten  by  their  relations.  The 
king  of  Macaco  resides  in  Monsol,  where 
there  is  a  market  in  which  human  flesh  is 
sold,  although  other  meat  exists  in  plenty. 
They  esteem  it  a  luxury,  and  it  is  said 
an  hundred  prisoners  or  slaves  are  daily 
killed  for  the  king's  table. 

Q.  What  are  the  characteristics  of  the 
Hottentots? 

A.  They  are  the  most  abject  of  the  hu- 
man race.  They  besmear  their  bodies  with 
soot  and  grease,  live  upon  carrion,  old 
leather,  shoes,  and  everything  of  the  most 
loathsome  kind ;  dress  themselves  in  sheep's 
skins,  untanned,  turning  the  wool  to  their 
flesh  in  the  winter,  and  the  other  side  in  the 
summer.  Their  dress  serves  them  for  a 
bed  at  night,  for  a  covering  by  day,  and  for 
a  winding-sheet  when  they  die. 

One  geography  that  had  a  marked 
individuality  of  its  own  was  a  thick 
little  volume,  mostly  in  verse,  entitled 
'The  Monitor's  Instructor," published 
at  Wilmington  in  1804.  Speaking  of 
himself  in  the  third  person  in  the  in- 
troduction the  author  says:  "Unprac- 
tised in  poetry  in  a  great  degree,  he 
has  ventured  thereupon  supposing  it 
to  be,  in  general,  rather  more  taking, 
with  youth,  than  prose;  and  though 
not  the  jnost  flowery  cast,  it  will,  he 
hopes,  answer  the  end." 

"Now  let  the  muse  some  incense  bring. 
As  we  the  works  of  nature  sing," 

is  the  way  he  begins,  and  below  are 
extracts  culled  here  and  there  from 
succeeding  pages. 

"America  (our  native)  streams, 
Shall  first  awhile  become  our  themes, 
Both  lakes  and  rivers,  great  and  small. 
Which  in  th'  Atlantic  Ocean  fall." 


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OUR   FOREFATHERS 


63 


After  naming  the  more  important 
coast  rivers,  the  book  remarks — 

"Now  o'er  these   streams   thus    having 
glanc'd, 
And  hastily,  thus  far  advanc'd. 
Not  having  left  the  sounding  shore, 
Next  their  main  sources  shall  explore; 
And  on  the  wing  which  poets  feign, 
Soar  to  each  ^ount.  skim  o'er  the  plain, 
To  find  the  little  purling  rill, 
And  which  the  largest  rivers  fill. 

'*Onc  river,  of  enormous  size. 
To  west  of  Mississippi  lies.  .  .  . 
The  river  this  caird  Missouri, 
And  tow'rd  south-east  its  courses  lie, 

This  river,  from  what  I  can  see. 
Can't  less  than  the  Ohio  be." 

Skipping  to  where  the  book  is  de- 
scribing leading  towns,  we  find  these 
lines — 

"An  island  is  well  known  to  fame, 
Manhattan  is  this  island's  name.  .  .  . 
On  sou'west  end  New  York  doth  stand. 
Investing  all  that  point  of  land  .  .  . 
Not  fully  regular  it's  plann'd, 
Yet  very  elegant  and  grand.  .  .  . 
The  streets  present  diversity. 
And  suited  to  conveniency. 
The  Broadway  has  still  more  of  taste 
Than  any  street  in  all  the  place  .  .  . 
A  street  three-score  and  ten  feet  wide. 
And  gently  rising  from  the  tide, 
Its  edifices  bold  and  grand. 
Present  themselves  on  cither  hand; 
The  most  magnificent  of  all. 
Known  by  the  name  of  Fed'ral  Hall, 
For  pleasantness,  it  is  agreed, 
And  health,  few  places  this  exceed. 
In  summer  come,  on  every  side, 
The  cooling  breezes  from  the  tide. 
For  winter  mildness  few  excel 
This  city,  of  same  parallel." 

In  the  prose  portion  of  the  book  are 
several  curious  ''paradoxes."  Here  is 
one  of  them. 

Three  men  went  on  a  journey,  in  which, 
though  their  heads  travelled  12  yards 
^rthcr  than  their  feet,  all  returned  alive, 
with  their  heads  on." 


The  ••Solution"  explains  that  "If 
any  person  should  travel  round  the 
globe,  the  space  travelled  by  his  head 
will  exceed  that  his  feet  travelled"  by 
about  the  number  of  yards  mentioned. 

The  next  geography  from  which  I 
make  selection  is  by  Benjamin  Davies. 
It  was  published  in  1813.  The  first 
two  paragraphs  quoted,  come  under 
the  heading  "New  Holland."  This 
was  the  accepted  name  of  Australia 
until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. The  Dutch  discovered  the  con- 
tinent in  1616,  but  its  size  and  shape 
were  only  vaguely  known  until 
Captain  Cook  explored  most  of  the 
coast  in  1770. 

"Some  suppose  that  this  extensive  re- 
gion, when  more  thoroughly  investigated, 
will  be  found  to  consist  of  two,  three  or 
more  vast  islands,  intersected  by  narrow 
seas. 

"Inhabitants.  The  black  bushy  beards 
of  the  men  and  the  bone  or  reed  which 
they  thrust  through  the  cartilage  of  the 
nose,  g^ives  them  a  disgusting  appearance; 
which  is  not  improved  by  the  practice  of 
rubbing  fish  oil  into  their  skins  as  a  pro- 
tection from  the  air  and  moskitos;  so  that 
in  hot  weather  the  stench  is  intolerable 
The  women  are  marked  by  the  loss  of  the 
two  first  joints  of  the  little  finger  of  the 
left  hand ;  as  they  are  supposed  to  be  in  the 
way  when  they  coil  their  fishing  lines. 

"Manners  and  Customs  in  the  United 
States.  Travellers  have  observed  a  want 
of  urbanity,  particularly  in  Philadelphia; 
and  in  all  the  capital  cities,  an  eager  pur- 
suit of  wealth,  by  adventurous  speculations 
in  commerce,  by  land-jobbing,  banks,  insu- 
rance offices,  and  lotteries.  The  multipli- 
cation of  inns,  taverns  and  dram  shops,  is 
an  obvious  national  evil  that  calls  loudly 
for  legislative  interference;  for  in  no  coun- 
try are  they  more  numerous  or  more  uni- 
versally baneful.  Schools  are  spread 
everywhere  through  the  well  settled  parts 
of  the  country,  yet  the  domestic  regulation 
of  children  and  youth  is  not  duly  regarded. 

''Language.  The  English  language  is  the 
general  one  of  the  union,  and  is  cultivated 


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THE   GEOGRAPHIES   OF 


with  great  assiduity  in  all  the  principal 
cities  and  towns.  All  the  classical  authors 
in  the  En^^ish  language  have  been  re- 
printed in  America,  many  of  them  have 
passed  through  several  editions,  some  with 
great  elegance  and  correctness. 

"Boston  is  built  in  a  very  irregular  man- 
ner, on  a  peninsula,  at  the  bottom  of  Mas- 
sachusetts bay. 

'^Southern  Manners  and  Customs.  The 
inquisitive  traveller  as  he  progresses  south- 
ward no  longer  beholds  so  great  a  propor- 
tion of  hardy,  industrious,  and  healthy 
yeomanry,  living  on  terms  of  equality  and 
independence;  their  domestic  economy 
neat  and  comfortable;  their  farms  well 
stocked;  and  their  cattle  sleek  and  thriv- 
ing. On  the  contrary  he  discovers  the 
farmhouses  nK>re  thinly  scattered,  some  of 
them  miserable  hovels;  the  retreats  of 
small  proprietors,  who  are  too  indolent  or 
too  proud  to  labour;  here  and  there  a 
stack  of  corn-fodder,  and  the  cattle 
looking  as  miserable  as  their  owners. 
A  icvr  miles  distant  perhaps  he  finds  a 
large  mansion  house,  the  property  bt 
the  lord  of  two  or  three  thousand  acres 
of  land,  surrounded  by  50  or  100  negro- 
huts,  constructed  in  the  slightest  man- 
ner; and  about  these  cabins  swarms  of 
black  slaves.  But  it  is  just  to  ob 
serve  that  many  of  the  gentry  are  dis 
tinguishable  for  their  polished  manners 
and  education,  as  well  as  for  their  great 
hospitality  to  strangers." 

Cummings*  Geography,  1814,  apolo- 
gizes in  its  preface  for  adding  another 
"to  the  niunber  of  Geographies,  al- 
ready so  great  as  to  obstruct,  rather 
than  promote  improvement."  This 
preface  is  very  long,  and  is  chiefly 
made  up  of  directions  "designed  to  as- 
sist teachers,  who  have  had  but  im- 
perfect, or  no  geographical  instruc- 
tion." It  advises  them  to  "let  the 
pupils  always  set  with  their  faces 
towards  the  north."  Then  with  their 
maps  before  them  they  will  be  in 
proper  position  to  get  the  pointsof  the 
compass  straight  in  their  minds. 


Early  in  the  lessons  we  are  in- 
formed that  the  "AUeganies  are  in 
some  places,  immense  masses  of  rocks, 
piled  one  above  another  in  frightful 
precipices,  till  they  reach  the  height  of 
more  than  10,000  feet  above  a  level 
with  the  ocean."  In  reality  not  a 
peak  reaches  7,000  feet. 

During  the  previous  decade  Lewis 
and  Clark  had  made  their  journey 
across  the  continent  and  we  now  find 
mention  of  the  "Stony  Mountains." 
It  was  a  number  of  years  before  the 
name  Rocky  was  substituted  for 
Stony.  On  the  maps  they  were  some- 
times labeled  the  Chippewan  Moun- 
tains, and  Workman's  Geography  in 
1805,  says  the  ranges  "that  lie  west 
of  the  river  St.  Pierre,  are  called  the 
Shining  Mountains,  from  an  infinite 
number  of  chrystal  stones  of  an  amaz- 
ing size  with  which  they  are  covered, 
and  which  when  the  sun  shines  full 
upon  them,  sparkle  so  as  to  be  seen 
at  a  very  great  distance." 

In  the  descriptions  of  the  states,  we 
learn  from  Cummings  that  the  west- 
cm  part  of  Pennsylvania  abounds 
with  excellent  coal,  but  we  get  no  hint 
of  its  having  any  commercial  im- 
portance. Indeed,  coal  mining  as  an 
industry  did  not  begin  until  1820.  Be- 
fore that  time  coal  was  in  the  same 
category  as  were  petroleum  and  nat- 
ural gas,  which  the  book  calls  "curi- 
osities." 

Concerning  the  Andes  in  South 
America,  we  are  told,  "These  amazing 
mountains,  in  comparison  with  which 
the  Alps  are  but  little  hills,  have  fis- 
sures in  some  places  a  mile  wide,  and 
deep  in  proportion;  and  there  are 
others  that  run  under  the  ground,  and 
resemble  in  extent  a  province." 

When  we  come  to  Europe,  we  are 


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made  to  realize  the  intense  cold  of  the 
Lapland  winters  by  the  statement  that, 
**In  attempting  to  drink  the  lips  are 
frequently  frozen  to  the  cup."  It  is 
affirmed,  too,  that  if  there  is  a  crust 
on  the  snow,  "the  Laplander  travels 
with  his  reindeer  in  a  sledge  two  or 
three  hundred  miles  a  day."  Another 
queer  bit  is  this  about  the  roads  in 
Belgium,  or  Flanders  as  it  was  then 
called.  "They  are  generally  a  broad 
causeway,  and  run  several  miles  in  a 
straight  line  till  they  terminate  in  a 
view  of  some  magnificent  building." 
These  views  no  doubt  gave  pleasure, 
but  I  think  1  should  have  preferred  to 
have  the  roads  continue. 

Presently    we    find    the     following 
paragraph. 

"In  the  ocean  there  are  many  dangerous 
whirlpools.  That  called  the  Maelstroom, 
upon  the  coast  of  Norway,  is  considered  as 
the  most  dreadful  and  voracious  in  the 
world.  A  minute  description  of  the  inter- 
nal parts  is  not  to  be  expected,  since  none, 
who  were  there,  ever  returned  to  bring 
back  information.  The  body  of  the  waters, 
that  form  this  whirlpool,  is  extended  in  a 
circle  about  thirteen  miles  in  circumfer- 
ence. In  the  midst  of  this  stands  a  rock 
against  which  the  tide  in  its  ebb  is  dashed  , 
with   inconceivable  fury.     At   this   time   • 


Natural  Bridge  of  Virginia. 
Worcester's  Geography,  1828 

instantly     swallows     up     everything    that 
comes    within    the    sphere   of   its    violence. 
No   skill   in   the  mariner,    nor   strength  of 
rowing,  can  work  an  escape;   the  vessel's 
motion,  though  slow  in  the  beginning,  be- 
comes  every  moment  more   rapid,   it  goes 
around   in   circles   still   narrower  and   nar- 
rower, till  at  last  it  is  dashed  against  the 
rocks  and  instantly   disappears.     Nor  is  it 
seen    again    for    six    hours;    till,    the    tide 
flowing*'-    's  thrown  forth  with  the  same 
violence  with  whicl.  '*■  was  drawn  in.    The 
noise    of    this    dreadful    vortex 
itill  farther    contributes    to    in- 
crease its  terror,  which,  with  the 
dashing   of   the    wate.  >,    makes 
one  of  the  most  tremendous  ob- 
jects in  nature." 


Caiartui  of  Kia^  "ra, 

Wororster'B  Geography,  1828 


In  another  geography  of 
the  period  we  learn  that  even 
*'the  bellowing  struggles  of 
the  whale  have  not  always 
redeemed  him  from  the 
danger,"  and  that  "the  bot- 
tom is  full  of  craggy  spires." 
']'he  real  maelstrom  is  caused 
by  the  current  of  the  Great 


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THE   GHOGRAPHIES   OF 


From  Worcester's  Geography,  1829 

West  Fiord  rushing  between  two  of 
the  Loffoden  Isles.  Ordinarily  it  can 
b»e  traversed  without  apprehension, 
but  when  the  wind  blows  directly 
against  the  current,  the  sea  around 
for  several  miles  is  violently  agitated 
and  extremely  dangerous. 

Adams'  Geography,  1818,  is  divided 
into  three  parts — Part  I,  "Geograph- 
ical Orthography,"  consisting  of  ten 
pages  of  names  of  states,  rivers,  towns, 
etc.,  to  be  used  as  spelling  lessons ; 
Part  II,  **A  Grammar  of  Geograpln ,"' 
fifty  pages,  being  an  epitome  oi  main 
facts  "to  be  committed  u.>  memory"; 
Part  III,  *'/.  Description  of  the 
Earth,"  making  up  the  body  of  the 
book,  "to  be  read  in  classes."  The 
first  four  excerpts  are  from  Part  II, 
the  rest  from  Part  111. 

"A  MoT'NTAiN  is  a  vast  protuberance 
of  the  earth. 

**Rurof>e  is  distinguished  for  its  learning, 
politeness,  government,  and  laws;  for  the 
industry  of  its  inhabitants,  and  the  tem- 
perature of  its  climate. 

"The  White  Mountains  are  the  hiRlu>i 
not  only  in  New  Hampshire,  but  in  the 
United  States. 

"Switzerland  is  a  small  romantic  coun- 
try, lying  upon  the  Alps,  and  is  the  high- 


est spot  in  Europe.  St. 
Gothard  is  the  highest  moun- 
tain. 

"Navigation  on  the  Afissis- 
sihf>i  is  attended  with  many 
diOiculties  and  dangers,  from 
the  sudden  crooks  and  bends 
in  the  river,  the  falling  in  of 
its  banks,  and  more  especially 
from  the  sawyers,  so  called, 
which  are  trees  whose  roots 
have  by  some  means  become 
fastened  to  the  bottom  of  the 
river,  in  such  a  manner,  that, 
from  the  continual  pressure 
of  the  current,  they  receive  a 
regular  vibratory  motion  from 
the  resemblance  of  which  to 
a  saw-mill,  they  have  derived  their 
name.  7'heir  motion  is  sometimes  very 
quick,  and  if  they  strike  a  boat,  it  is 
immediately  upset  or  dashed  to  pieces. 
Vessels  are  from  five  to  thirty  days  on 
their  passage  up  to  New  Orleans,  S7  miles; 
although  with  a  favorable  wind,  they  will 
sometimes  descend  in  12  hours.  From 
New  Orleans  to  Matches,  310  miles,  the 
voyage  requires  from  60  to  80  days. 
Ships  rarely  ascend  above  that  place.  It  is 
navigable  for  boats,  carrying  about  40 
tons,  and  rowed  by  18  or  20  men  to  the 
falls  of  St.  Anthony. 
"The    number    of    post-offices    in    the 


Portrait  Medal  presented  "Peter 
Parley"  by  the  Americans  in  Paris 


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United  States  in  1811,  was  2,403.  The 
mail  was  carried  46,380  miles  in  stages, 
and  61,171  miles  in  sulkies  and  on  horse- 
back. 

"Several  mineral  springs  break  forth  in 
different  parts  of  the  United  States.  The 
most  celebrated  are  those  of  Saratoga  and 
Ballstown  in  the  state  of  New  York.  The 
latter  place  is  much  frequented  by  gay  and 
fashionable  people,  as  well  as  by  invalids. 

**Beer  is  the  common  drink  of  the  inhab- 
itants of  Nezv  York  State.  The  forests 
abound  with  bears,  wolves,  deer,  and  elks. 

"Many  of  the  towns  and  plantations  in 
Afaine  are  destitute  of  any  settled  minis- 
ter. Missionaries  sent  among  them  have 
been    very    affectionately    received. 

"Water  is  brought  to  Philadelphia  in  a 
subterraneous  canal,  from  the  Schuylkill, 
and  is  then  raised  by  steam  30  or  40  feet 
to  a  reservoir  on  the  top  of  a  circular  edi- 
fice, from  which  it  is  distributed  by  bored 
logs  to  the  different  parts  of  the  city. 

"Pittsburg  is  supplied  with  foreign  goods 

PETER  PARLEY 

Going  to  tell  about  Geography. 


Taka  care  there !  take  care  boys  !  if  you  ran  against  my  tos 
111  not  tell  yoa  another  story ! 

FroDtispieoe  to  Parley's  Geography  (1829) 


"Peter  Parley" 

chiefly  by  land  from  Philadelphia 
and     Baltimore.       The     price      of 

waggon  carriage  this  distance  is 
from  5  to  6  dollars  a  hundred 
ponnds  weight.  The  number  of 
inhabitants,  in  1810,  was  4,768." 

A  decade  later,  when  Pittsburg 
had  a  population  of  seven  thoti- 
sand  the  geographies  speak  of 
it  as  **one  of  the  greaitest  manu- 
facturing towns  in  the  Union." 

I  quote  further)  from  Adams, 
beginning  with  what  he  has  to 
say  of  "the  floating  mills  for 
grinding  corn,  which  are  fre- 
quently seen  on  the  Ohio  river." 

"The  mill  is  supported  by  two 
large  canoes,  with  the  wheel  be- 
tween them;  this  is  moored  wherc- 
ever  they  can  find  the  strongest 
current,  nearest  to  the  shore,  by 
the  force  of  which  alone  the  mill 
is  put  in  operation.  It  is  floated 
up  and  down  the  river  whenever  ii 
customer  calls.- 

"The    exports    from    Ohio,    con 
sisting  of  flour,   corn,  hemp,   flax. 


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THE   GEOGRAPHIES   OF 


Norw^an. 
Parley's  Geography,  1829 

beef,  pork,  smoked  hams  of  venison,  whis- 
key, peach  brandy,  and  lumber  are  mostly 
sent  down  the  Mississippi  to  New  Orleans, 
Those  boats  which 
descend   with    the 
produce   rarely  re- 
turn, but  on  arriv- 
ing   at    New    Or- 
leans, are  taken  to 
pieces  and  sold  for 
lumber. 

''Cincinnati  is  a 
pleasant,  flourish- 
ing town.  It  con- 
tains about  3,000  in- 
habitants. In  this 
town  is  fort  Wash- 
ington, which 
commences  the  chain  of  forts  extending  to 
the  westward. 

**  Detroit,   the  capital  of   Michigan  Terri- 
tory, is  a  place  of  considerable  trade,  which 


Bridges  in  Chili. 

Woodbridge's  Rudiments  of  Geography,  1829 


IVhiie  Bear. 

Olney  s  Geography,  1831 

consists  chiefly  in  a  barter  of   coarse  Euro- 
pean goods  with  the  natives  for  furs.    The 
town  is  surrounded  by  a  strong  blockade, 
through    which    there    are    4    gates.      The 
streets  are  generally  crowded  with  Indians 
in  the  day  time;  but  at  night  they  are  all 
shut    out     of     the 
town,  except  such 
as   get  admittance 
into  private  houses, 
and   the  gates  are 
closed. 

**St.  Low's,  the 
capital  of  the  Ter- 
ritory of  Louisiana, 
contains  about  200 
houses  and  is  well 
fortified. 

"The  people  of 
Norway  are  justly 
famed  for  honesty 


and  industry,  and  retain  their  strength  so 
long,  that  a  Norwegian  is  not  supposed  in- 
capable of  labour,  till  he  is  upwards  of  lOO 


77ie  Maelslroom, 
Olney's  Geography,  1831 


A  Chinese  Mlling  BaU  and  Puppiet 
for  pies. 

Parley's  Geography,  1839 


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years  old.  The  inhabitants  in  some 
of  the  interior  parts  it  is  said  live  till 
weary  of  life. 

**  In  all  the  northern  parts  of  Russia 
the  winter  cold  is  very  terrible.  Birds 
in  the  act  of  flying  have  sometimes 
been  known  to  drop  down  dead  from 
the  atmosphere  in  consequence  of  it; 
drivers  of  carriages  are  frequently 
frozen  to  death  upon  their  seats  with- 
out being  able  to  change  their  posi- 
tion. At  Petersburg,  only  two 
months  in  the  year  are  entirely  free 
from  snow. 

**The    Condor  is  undoubtedly  the 
largest    bird  that  pervades  the  air.     When 
it  alights    on   the  ground,  or    rises    from 


Winter  Scene  in  Canada. 

**Among  the  animals  peculiar  to  South 
America,    the    most    extraordinary    is    the 


C9U$Ury  Ston,  exhibiting  tkt  Productiont  ofFarimu  ComUritt, 

Willard  s  Geography  for  Beginners,  1830 


it,  the  noise  it  makes  with  its  wings  is 
such  as  to  terrify  and  almost  to  deafen  any 
one  who  happens  to  be  near  the  place. 


People  emigrating  from  Connecticut. 
Ifatte-Biun  Geography,  1839 


Sloth,  or  as  it  was  called  by  the  way  ot  de- 
rision, the  swift  Petre.  It  is  about  the  size 
of  an  ordinary  monkey,  but  of  a  most 
wretched  appearance.  It  never 
stirs  unless  impelled  by  hunger; 
it  is  said  to  be  several  minutes  in 
moving  one  of  its  legs.  Every 
effort  is  attended  with  a  most  dis- 
mal cry.  When  this  animal  finds 
no  wild  fruits  on  the  ground,  he 
looks  out  with  a  great  deal  of  pain 
for  a  tree  well  loaded,  which  he 
ascends  moving  and  crying,  and 
stopping  by  turns.  At  length, 
having  mounted,  he  plucks  off  all 
the  fruit  and  throws  it  on  the 
ground,  to  save  himself  such  an- 
other   troublesome    journey;    and 


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THE   GEOGRAPHIES    OF 


AgmU  takmg  tke  Ccwf&r  RmL 

rather  than  be  fatigued  in  coming  down  the 
tree,  gathers  himself  in  a  bunch,  and  with 
a  shriek  drops  to  the  ground.'* 

A  similar  description  of  the  sloth 
in  Dwight's 
Geography 
includes  the 
statement 
that,  ''It  is 
so  many  days 
t  ravel  lingf 
from  one  tree 
to  another, 
that  it  fre- 
q  u  e  n  t  1  y 
g^rows  lean 
during:  the 
journey.  *' 

Peter   Par- 
ley's Alethod  of  Telling:  about  Geog- 
raphy, 1829,  was  a  thin,  square  little 
book    with    leather  back    and    flexi- 
ble    pasteboard    sides.       For 
years    it    had     an     immense 
circulation.       The     style      is 
simple   and   colloquial,    there 
are    numerous     pictures    and 
a  variety   of  maps    and    dia- 
grams.      Perhaps     the     por- 
tion   best      remembered     by 
those       who        studied      the 
book  is  a  rhymed    review  of 
the    earlier      lessons,    begin- 
ning 


J^ilgrirM  landing  at  Plymouth 

Goodrich's  Geography,  1845 


**  The  world  is  round,  and  like  a  ball 
Seems  swinging  in  the  air, 
A  sky  extends  around  it  all, 
And  stars  are  shining  there." 

Pains    are    taken    to    incul- 
cate   good  morals    and    relig^- 
ion,    and    we    find    in  treating^ 
of     Asia     considerable      Bible 
history  with  appropriate  com- 
ments.     **  This    history,  *'    the 
author    says,    "is    exceedingly 
interesting,     and     is     all     true.       A 
great  part  of   the  history  of  almost 
all    other   nations  is  false  ;     but   the 
Bible    tells     us     nothing    but    what 
is   worthy  o! 
belief." 

The  Malte- 
Brun  Geog- 
raphy, 1831, 
was  also  writ- 
ten by  "  Peter 
Parley,''  but 
the  materials 
for  the  book 
were  drawn 
chiefly  from 
the  large 
work  by 
the  noted 
French  geographer,  whose  name  gives 
the  book  its  title.  Selections  that 
show     something    of    the    character 


Notflf  and  Seif*  qf  R^ttia, 


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MitchelPs  Geography.  1850 


of  the  book  and  of   the 
times  follow  : 

*•  Occasional  bands  of 
white  hunters  and  trappers 
range  the  Missouri  Ter- 
ritory for  furs.  Some  of 
them  extend  their  ex- 
peditions to  the  foot  of 
the  Rocky  mountains, 
and  some  to  the  shores 
of  the  Pacific.  The  herds 
of  buffaloes  that  are  seen 
in  this  territory  sometimes 
amount  to  10,000  each. 
When  the  herd  is  moving, 
the  ground  trembles,  and  the  grumbling 
and  bellowing  of  the  multitude  is  heard  for 
miles. 

"It  is  probable  that,  ere  long,  roads  will 
be  cut  across  the  Rocky  mountains;  that 
lines  of  stages 
will  convey  trav- 
ellers from  the 
shores  of  the 
Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific;  that  the 
borders  of  the  lat- 
ter ocean  will  be 
occupied  by  towns 
and  villages ;  and 
that  the  immense 
valleys  of  the 
Missouri,  the 
Arkansas    and 


BatUe  of  Lezinftoo. 


A  Geography  Map  of  1847 


the  Columbia,  now  given  up  to  the  domin- 
ion of  savages  and  wild  beasts,  will  present 
all  the  busy  and  varied  scenes  of  a  crowded 
population. 


"Paris  sets  the  fashions  for  Europe,  and 
in  some  measure  for  America.  An  im- 
mense trade  is  here  carried  on  in 
articles  of  dress.  Every  week  the  female 
fashions  are  changed,  and  every  month 
there  is  a  new  cut 
for  male  attire." 

From  Wood- 
bridg^e's  Uni- 
versal Geogra- 
phy, 1833,  a 
larg^e,  thick 
volume  for  ad- 
vanced schol- 
ars, I  make 
this  extract  : 

*'In  1790  the  extent  of  post-roads  in  the 
United  States  was  only  1875  miles ;  in  1827^ 
it  was  105,336.     The  great  roads  are  usually 
turnpikes  constructed  by  the  state  or  incor- 
porated bodies  and  supported 
by     tolls.     New     England, 
and  the  greater  part  of  the 
Middle  States,  are  intersected 
in  every  direction  by  roads, 
which  are  usually  well  con- 
structed and  in  good  repair. 
"In   the    sandy,     alluvial 
country  of  the  Atlantic  coast 
from    New    York   to    Flor- 
ida, the  roads  are  heavy,  and 
not   easily    improved.     The 
scattered  state  of  population 
has   prevented  much  atten- 
tion  to  roads,  in  the  states 


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ALCHEM\ 


south  of  Maryland  :  and  frequent  impedi- 
ments are  presented  by  the  want  of  bridges 
and  causeways,  over  the  streams  and 
marshes. 

"In  the  Western  States,  during  the  wet 
season,  many  roads  are  scarcely  passable 
for  wheel  carriages.  The  travelling  in  these 
states  is  chiefly  by  steam  boats,  on  their 
noble  rivers.  The  small  streams  are  so 
variable  that  most  of  them  can  be  forded 
during  the  dry  seasons,  and  bridges  are 
rarely  built.  The  banks  are  high  and 
steep,  and  the  difficulty  of  passage  is  often 
very  great.  During  high  water,  many 
of  the  streams  become  impassable,  and  the 
traveller  encounters  serious  dangers. 

**The  most  important  post-road  in  the 
United  States  is  that  which  traverses  the 
states  on  the  Atlantic,  a  distance  of  i,8oo 
miles,  passing  through  all  the  principal 
towns  from  Robbinstown  in  Maine  to 
Florida. 

**  A  plan  has  recently  been  invented  for 
constructing  roads  with  iron  bars,  or  rail- 
ways, on  which  the  wheels  of  carriages  run 
so  easily  that  they  may  be  drawn  from  15 
to  30  miles  an  hour,  by  means  of  locomo- 
tive steam  engines." 

Peter  Parley  in  one  of  his  geog- 
raphies published  in  1837,  says  of  tiic 
railroads : 

"They  are  found  so  useful,  that,  for 
carrying  passengers  from  one  place  to  an- 
other, they  have,  on  many  routes,  taken 
the  place  of  stage-coaches.  When  the  cars 
first  began  to  run,  it  was  amusing  to  see 
the  astonishment  of  the  horses  and  cattle, 
as  the  engines  came  snorting,  smoking  and 


puffing  over  the  road.  You  have  neard  of 
the  rail  road  from  Boston  to  Worcester. 
Near  the  latter  place  is  an  Insane  Hospi- 
tal, which  commands  a  view  of  the  road. 
When  the  first  car  came  into  Worcester,  a 
crazy  man  was  looking  out  of  the  window. 
*  Upon  my  word,*  said  he,  *that's  a  strange- 
looking  beast  and  travels  desperate  fast  for 
such  a  short-legged  crittur.*" 

Peter  Parley's  National  Geography, 
1845,  was  the  earHest,  I  believe,  to 
take  the  large,  flat  quarto  shape. 
This  form  enabled  it  to  include  good- 
sized  maps  and  do  away  with 
the  necessity  for  a  separate  atlas; 
and  in  a  few  years  the  12  mos.  had 
been  entirely  abandoned.  The  chai>- 
ters  of  the  National  Geography  were 
enlivened  with  poetical  introductions 
and  there  were  occasional  other 
verses.  The  following  selection,  the 
last  I  have  to  make  from  the  geogra- 
phies of  our  forefathers,  is  this  jingle 
description  of  **  a  general  custom  of 
moving,  in  the  city  of  New  York, 
on  the  first  of  May.*' 

"  Bustle,  bustle!    Clear  the  way! 
He  moves,  they  move,  we  move,  to-day  ;  — 
Pulling,  hauling,  fathers  calling, 
Mothers  brawling,  children  squalling. 
Coaxing,  teasing,  whimpering,  prattling; 
Pots,  and  pans  and  kettles  rattling  ; 
Tumbling  bedsteads,   flying  bedspreads, 
Broken  chairs,  and  hollow  wares. 
Strew  the  streets — 'Tis  moving  day!'* 


Alchemy 

By  Charlotte  Becker 

THE  flower-stripped   earth,  bewailing  summer's  flight, 
Lay  brown  and  bare,  where  sad-faced  autumn  trod- 
When  lo!  the  pitying  stm  beheld  her  plight, 
And  dowered  her  with  a  wealth  of  golden-rod ! 


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John  Wise's  House,  Essex,  i703 


The  Founder  of  American  Democracv 


By  J.  M.  Mackaye 


LIKE  many  great  men  in  the 
annals  of  American  history, 
John  Wise  was  of  lowly  or- 
igin. His  father,  Joseph, 
came  to  New  England  as  the  serv- 
ing man  of  a  Dr.  Alcock  about 
1635.  These  serving  men,  of  whom 
many  emigrated  to  the  New  World 
early  in  the  seventeenth  century,  were 
too  poor  to  pay  the  expense  of  the  voy- 
age across  the  Atlantic  and  who  there- 
fore pledged  or  mortgaged  their  ser- 
vices to  some  person  better  provided, 
in  consideration  of  being  transported 
to  America  and  supported  there  until 
able  to  buy  their  liberty.  Joseph  Wise 
obtained   his   release   from  service   in 


1641  throu.i^h  the  death  of  his  master, 
and  in  December  of  that  year  married 
Mary  Thompson  and  settled  in  Rox- 
bury,  Massachusetts.  Thirteen  chil- 
dren were  born  to  them,  of  whom 
John  was  the  fifth.  He  was  baptized 
July  15th,  O.  S.,  1652.  The  exact 
date  of  his  birth  is  variously  stated, 
but  from  the  date  of  his  baptism  it  was 
probably  early  in  July  of  that  year. 

Little  is  known  of  his  early  life. 
He  was  brought  up  in  Roxbury  and 
attended  the  "Free  Schoole"  there, 
where,  as  we  learn  from  an  ancient 
document,  instruction  was  to  be  had 
"in  all  scholasticall,  morall  and  theo- 
logicall   discipline."     His   pastor   was 


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FOUNDER    OF    AMERICAN    DEMOCRACY 


From  Cruwell's  History  of  Essex,  1853 

First  Church,   Chebacco   Parish 

the  famous  Eliot,  Apostle  to  the  In- 
dians, and  the  inspiration  derived  from 
early  association  with  him  may  have 
determined  the  lad  in  the  choice  of  a 
career.  In  1669,  at  the  age  of  seven- 
teen, he  entered  Harvard  College,  at 
that  time  housed  in  a  single  dilapi- 
dated wooden  building,  including  "a 
spacious  Hall  where  they  daily  met  at 
Commons,  Lectures  &c., — and  a  large 
Library  with  some  Bookes  to  it." 
There  were  about  forty  students  in 
attendance  in  1669,  and  one  officer  of 
instruction,  the  President,  who  per- 
formed all  the  functions  of  a  Faculty 
of  Arts  and  Sciences,  with  the  aid  of  a 
few  tutors  selected  from  the  post  grad- 
uate department,  then  numbering  a 
scant  dozen.  Social  distinctions  were 
rigorously  observed  and  the  students 
were  seated  in  lecture  hall,  meeting 
house  and  commons,  and  helped  at 
table  in  the  order  of  their  social  rank. 
As  his  father  had  no  social  standing  it 
is  probable  that  John  was  placed  in  a 
position  to  thoroughly  appreciate  the 
injustice  of  an  aristocratic  system,  and 
it  has  been  conjectured  that  his  love 
for  democracy  originated  during  this 
period. 


In  September,  1672,  it  is  recorded 
that  John  Wise  was  one  of  a  company 
who  dined  at  the  inn  of  Sam  Gibson 
on  an  occasion  of  doubtful  propriety. 
One  Edward  Pelham,  a  classmate,  it 
seems  supplied  young  Urian  Oakes, 
the  callow  son  of  the  President,  with 
a  "fowling  peece"  and  directed  him  to 
"ye  fence  between  ye  Marshall's  yard 
and  Capt.  Gookin's  where  sat  a  tur- 
kie  and  desired  him  to  shoot  yt  wch 
he  accordingly  did."  The  bird  thus 
feloniously  procured  was  served  by 
Gibsop  to  Wise  and  his  companions  at 
a  nocturnal  banquet  to  which  the  au- 
thorities were  not  privy.  The  inn- 
keeper was  subsequently  fined  for  his 
part  in  the  transaction,  but  history  is 
silent  as  to  the  punishment  of  the  stu- 
dents. Perhaps  the  college  undertook 
their  discipline  in  conformity  with  the 
methods  then  in  vogue,  when  trans- 
gressors were  compelled  to  kneel  in 
public  in  the  hall  and  accept  corportd 
chastening  at  the  hands  of  the  Presi- 
dent, who  opened  and  closed  the  "ex- 
ercises" with  prayer. 

Wise  was  graduated  in  1673  ^"^ 
took  his  master's  degree  in  1675.  In 
the  interim  he  had  preached  at  Bran- 
ford,  Connecticut,  and  in  December, 
1675,  served  as  chaplain  to  a 
company  who  marched  from  thence 
against  the  Narragansetts  during 
King  Philip's  War.  After  taking  his 
master's  degree  he  preached  for  two 
years  in  Hatfield,  Connecticut,  return- 
ing to  Roxbury  in  1678,  where  he  mar- 
ried Abigail  Gardner  the  same  year. 

Ipswich  was  at  this  time  the  second 
town  in  the  colony,  and  its  inhabitants 
were  scattered  over  a  wide  area,  in- 
cluding the  present  towns  of  Hamil- 
ton and  Essex.  To  serve  the  spiritual 
need  of  the  population  but  one  church 


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Present  Parish  Church,  Erected  1792 


was  provided,  and  in  order  to  attend 
divine  service  and  the  Thursday  lec- 
ture the  inhabitants  of  the  more  re- 
mote districts  were  compelled  to  tra- 
verse miles  of  forest  infested  by 
wolves  and  Indians.  Dissatisfied  with 
such  conditions  the  residents  of  that 
part  of  the  town  known  as  Chebacco, 
comprising  the  present  town  of  Essex, 
took  preliminary  steps  in  1676  toward 
the  establishment  of  a  church  and  par- 
ish of  their  own,  and  in  1677  petitioned 
the  General  Court  for  the  necessary 
permission.  The  petition  was  tabled, 
and  the  petitioners  referred  to  the 
town,  which  had  already  refused  to 
grant  the  desired  separation,  and  on  a 
second  application  refused  a  second 
time.  After  a  good  deal  of  fruitless 
negotiation  the  inhabitants  of  Chebac- 


co in  1679  decided  to  erect  a  meeting 
house  of  their  own,  to  be  used,  if  cir- 
cumstances permitted,  as  a  place  of 
public  worship;  and  for  that  purpose 
assembled  the  timbers  for  the  same 
and  prepared  to  raise  them.  The  au- 
thorities of  the  Ipswich  church,  how- 
ever, obtained  an  order  from  the  Gen- 
eral Court  restraining  the  men  of 
Chebacco  from  raising  the  meeting 
house — what  we  should  to-day  call  an 
injunction — and  thus  again  brought 
the  enterprise  to  a  standstill.  At  tliis 
critical  juncture,  when  the  Chebac- 
co people  seemed  so  successfully 
thwarted,  the  women  of  the  neighbor- 
hood by  a  little  ingenuity  circum- 
vented the  Ipswich  church  and  the 
Great  and  General  Court.  Unknown 
to  their  husbands,  Mrs.  Varney,  Mrs. 


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Site  of  the  First  Parsonage 


Goodhue  and  Mrs.  Martin,  after  a 
conference  with  other  women  of  the 
neighborhood,  set  out  on  horseback 
through  the  woods  for  the  adjacent 
towns  of  Gloucester  and  Manchester, 
and  presenting  the  case  to  their  friends 
in  those  towns,  soon  returned  with  a 
small  army  of  men,  not  of  Chebacco, 
and  therefore  not  restrained  by  the  in- 
junction, who  quickly  raised  the  meet- 
ing house.  The  only  punishment  re- 
sulting from  this  bold  act  was  that 
suffered  doubtless  by  the  baked  punk- 
in',  Injun  pudding,  beans  and  hard 
cider  of  the  well  pleased  and  hospitable 
•Chebacco  folk,  and  this  we  may  be 
sure  was  sufficiently  severe. 

It  was  to  the  independent  and  en- 
terprising parish  thus  established  that 
John  AA'ise  was  recommended  as  pas- 
tor by  the  General  Court,  and  in  1680 
he  began  preaching  at  Chebacco.  In 
1683  he  was  formally  ordained,  his 
settlement  consisting  of  an  annual  sal- 
ary of  £60,  "one-third  in  money  and 
two-thirds  in  grain  at  the  current 
price,  forty  cords  of  oak  wood  by  the 
year  yearly  and  eight  loads  of  salt 
hay."  In  addition  they  assigned  to 
him  ten  acres  of  land  and  agreed  to 
build  him  a  house  and  barn,  "the  house 
76 


to  be  equal  in  every  respect  to  Sam- 
uel Giddings'  house."  The  last  pro- 
vision was  later  altered,  and  Wise  in 
1703  built  his  own  house,  still  stand- 
ing. From  1680  to  1703  he  lived  in  a 
house,  long  since  gone,  which  stood  a 
little  further  to  the  south. 

Four  years  after  his  ordination  at 
Chebacco  occurred  an  event  which 
made  Wise  famous  throughout  the 
colony,  and  which  alone  entitles  him 
to  a  place  among  those  whose  "eternal 
vigilance"  during  the  colonial  era  was 
the  price  of  liberty  to  their  jxDsterity. 
Sir  Edmund  Andros  had  been  for  two 
years  and  more  the  Governor  of  New- 
England.  The  charters  of  the  several 
colonies,  under  which  they  had  for  two 
generations  practised  self-government, 
had  been  abrogated  by  a  characteristic 
act  of  the  House  of  Stuart.  Andros 
had  already  made  himself  obnoxious 
by  his  tyrannical  conduct,  and  in  the 
summer  of  1^)87  he  added  to  his  mal- 
odorous reputation  by  arbitrarily  levy- 
ing a  tax  of  a  penny  a  pound  on  prop- 
erty holders  indiscriminately.  The 
people  had  no  voice  in  the  matter.  A 
town  meeting  had  been  called  in  the 
town  of  Ipswich  for  August  23,  O.  S., 
1687,  to  consider  the  appointment  of 


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FOUNDER   OF   AMERICAN    DEMOCRACY 


n 


assessors  to  apportion  the  tax  thus 
im[>osed.  The  ni^ht  before  the  nieet- 
inj2f  Wise,  with  several  others  promi- 
nent in  the  town,  attended  a  caucus  at 
the  house  of  John  Appleton  near  the 
centre,  and  it  was  then  decided  that 
**it  was  not  the  Town's  duty  any  way 
to  assist  that  ill  method  of  raising 
money  without  a  General  Assembly, 
which  was  apparently  intended  by  Sir 
Edmund  and  his  Council."  The  next 
day  in  town  meeting  Wise  made  a 
speech  opposing  the  appointment  of  as- 
sessors for  the  purpose  specified,  in 
the  course  of  which  he  gave  emphatic 
expression  to  the  sentiment  that  "tax- 
ation without  representation  is  tyran- 
ny," and  local  tradition  has  it  that  on 
that  occasion  he  not  only  expressed 
the  sentiment  but  originated  the 
phrase.  As  a  result  the  meeting  voted 
unanimously  to  appoint  no  assessors, 
thus  setting  an  example  of  rebellion 
which  was  shonly  followed  by  several 
other  towns  in  the  colony.  For  this 
act  Wise,  with  five  others,  William 
Goodhue,  Robert  Kinsman,  John  An- 
drews, John  Appleton  and  Thomas 
French,  was  lodged  in  jail  at  Boston, 
where  he  remained  for  three  weeks 
awaiting  trial.  While  there  he  de- 
manded and  was  denied  the  right  of 
habeas  corpus  in  violation  of  the  Eng- 


lish constitution,  was  accused  of  "con- 
tempt and  high  misdemeanor,"  and 
found  guilty  by  a  packed  jury,  com- 
posed principally  of  aliens.  As  of  in- 
terest to  the  student  of  comparative 
jurisprudence  the  following  extract 
from  the  charge  of  Chief  Justice  Dud- 
ley to  the  jury  may  be  worth  quoting: 
"I  am  glad  there  be  so  many  worthy 
gentlemen  of  the  jury  so  capable  of 
doing  the  King's  service  and  we  ex- 
pect a  good  verdict  from  you,  seeing 
the  matter  hath  been  so  sufficiently 
proved  against  the  criminals."  At  his 
trial  Wise  pleaded  his  privileges  under 
Magna  Charta,  but  the  provisions  of 
that  instrument  were  construed  as  in- 
operative in  America.  According  to 
an  account  of  the  trial  later  drawn  up 
by  Wise  and  sent  with  other  charges 
against  Andros  to  the  home  govern- 
ment, one  of  the  judges  asserted  that 
"we  (Wise  and  his  fellow  prisoners) 
must  not  think  that  the  laws  of  Eng- 
land follow  us  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,"  adding,  "Mr.  Wise,  you  have 
no  more  privileges  left  you  than  not 
to  be  sold  as  slaves,"  and  no  man  in 
Council  contradicted. 

Wise  was  fined  £  50  and  costs,  was 
suspended  from  the  ministry  and  com- 
pelled to  furnish  bonds  in  the  sum  of 
£  1,000  for  good  behavior.    The  town 


Wise's  Ten-acre  Lot,  Granted  Him  by  the  Parish  in  1682 

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78 


FOUNDER   OF   AMERICAN   DEMOCRACY 


of  Ipswich,  however,  paid  the  fine,  to- 
gether with  those  imposed  on  his 
townsmen,  and  recompensed  them  for 
the  expense  they  had  incurred  during 
their  trial.  It  has  been  asserted  that 
John  Wise  was  the  first  man  in  Amer- 
ica to  thus  maintain  the  just  preroga- 
tives of  the  people  in  defiance  of  gov- 
ernment, but  this  is  not  strictly 
correct.  George  Phillips,  an  ancestor 
of  Wendell  Phillips,  in  1632  protested 
against  a  somewhat  similar  assess- 
ment, though  of  a  far  less  offensive 
character,  levied  on  the  citizens  of 
Cambridge.  Phillips,  however,  with- 
drew from  his  position,  whereas  Wise 
maintained  his,  justified  it  on  legal 
and  moral  grounds  and  was  perhaps 
the  first  prominent  victim  of  those 
"ministerial  tools"  of  whose  misdeeds 
so  much  is  to  be  found  in  Revolution- 
ary annals. 

The  outcome  of  the  affair  had  much 
of  poetic  justice  in  it.  When  in  1688 
James  II  fled  from  London,  his  agent 
Andros  attempted  to  escape  from  Bos- 
ton, but  was  deposed  by  the  people 
and  sent  a  prisoner  to  England. 
Meanwhile  Wise  was  chosen  one  of 
two  delegates  to  represent  the  town 
of  Ipswich  at  the  convention  called  to 
reorganize  the  colony,  and  later  he 
sued  Justice  Dudley  for  denying  him 
the  privilege  of  habeas  corpus,  and 
recovered  damages.  In  his  jealousy 
for  the  rights  of  the  people  and  his 
tenacity  in  maintaining  them  is  re- 
vealed an  altitude  of  mind  identical 
with  that  which  characterized  the  men 
of  '76. 

The  Andros  incident  was  not  tlie 
only  one  which  proves  Wise  to  have 
been  an  advocate  and  exemplar  of  the 
**strenuous  life."  He  was  as  powerful 
physically  as  he  was  mentally.    Tradi- 


tion represents  him  as  very  tall  and 
strongly  built,  of  fine  presence,  com- 
bining affability  with  dignity.  In  his 
day  he  was  famous  as  a  wrestler.  It 
is  related  that  a  Captain  Chandler  of 
Andover,  himself  a  wrestler  of  local 
repute,  hearing  of  the  athletic  parson, 
rode  over  on  horseback  to  Chebacco  to 
test  his  prowess.  Wise  at  first  re- 
luctant to  engage  in  such  a  contest 
with  a  stranger,  eventually  consented 
to  try  a  bout  and  soon  laid  the  confi- 
dent Chandler  on  his  back.  That 
worthy  not  being  satisfied  he  repeated 
the  performance,  finally  depositing 
him  on  the  other  side  of  the 
wall,  whereat  the  discomfited  Captain 
scrambling  to  his  feet  remarked,  that 
if  Mr.  Wise  would  hand  his  horse 
over  after  him,  he  would  take  himself 
home.  The  stone  wall  standing  with- 
in the  memory  of  those  now  living,  in 
front  of  the  present  house, marked, ac- 
cording to  tradition,  the  place  of  this 
incident,  and  its  memory  is  still  cher- 
ished by  the  old  inhabitants.  On  an- 
other occasion  several  of  his  parish- 
ioners were  captured  by  pirates,  many 
of  whom  at  that  date  infested  the 
coast.  The  following  Sunday  he  re- 
ferred to  his  missing  townsmen  in  his 
prayer,  expressing  the  hope  that  if  no 
other  alternative  was  open,  they  would 
rise  and  slay  their  captors.  Faith  in 
the  efiicacy  of  prayer  among  his  par- 
ishioners was  much  augmented  the  fol- 
lowing day  when  the  missing  men 
returned  and  related  that  on  the  day 
preceding  they  had  surprised  the 
pirates,  killed  them  and  escaped,  thus 
fulfilling  the  prophecy  of  their  pas- 
ter's prayer  almost  at  the  moment  of 
its  utterance. 

In  1 72 1  when  Cotton  Mather — with 
whom  Wise  was  not  on  good  terms — 


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was  making  efforts  to  introduce  in- 
oculation to  check  the  smallpox,  the 
Chebacco  parson  was  one  of  his  few 
supporters,  despite  the  fact  that  the 
public  mind  was  so  incensed  against 
the  innovators  that  a  mob  attempted 
to  blow  up  Mather's  house  and  made 
an  ineffectual  effort  to  hang  Dr.  Zab- 
diel  Boylston,  the  only  physician  in 
Boston  who  dared  advocate  the  un 
popular  practice.  In  1690  Wise  joined 
the  expedition  of  Sir  Wm.  Phipps  in 
the  disastrous  attempt  to  capture  Que- 
bec. Few  reaped  any  honors  in  that 
adventure,  but  Wise,  though  present 
only  in  the  capacity  of  chaplain,  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  *'his  Hcroick 
Spirit  and  Martial  Skill  and  Wis- 
dom." In  1736  his  son  Henry  was 
granted  lands  from  the  public  do- 
main in  the  present  town  of  Win- 
chendon  in  recognition  of  the  services 
of  his  father  in  the  expedition  of  1690. 
It  has  been  erroneously  inferred  that 
this  was  a  special  honor  conferred  by 
the  state  upon  the  memory  of  John 
Wise,  but  the  records  show  the  infer- 
ence to  be  a  mistake.  Similar  grants 
were  made  to  all  survivors  of  that 
campaign,  or  to  the  representatives  of 
those  deceased. 

But  it  was  during  the  witchcraft 
delusion  of  1692  that  Wise  most  con- 
spicuously displayed  his  courage.  The 
danger  to  those  who  advocated  mod- 
eration and  justice  in  the  treatment 
of  witches  is  well  illustrated  by  a 
pamphlet  issued  in  1693  by  Increase 
Mather,  then  President  of  Harvard 
College  and  a  man  with  as  little  to  fear 
from  the  superstition  of  the  time  as 
anyone  in  the  colony.  He  endeavored 
to  show  in  this  pamphlet  among  other 
things  that  the  so-called  ** Spectral 
Evidence"  for  the  detection  of  witches, 


Owned  by  D.  B.  Bumham,  Essex 

Table  Made  by  Wise 

including  the  trial  by  water,  was  not 
to  be  depended  upon  and  he  rested  his 
demonstration  upon  proofs,  "All  con- 
sidered according  to  the  Scriptures, 
History,  Experience  and  the  Judg- 
ment of  many  Learned  MEN."  Mild 
as  was  the  protest  Mather  deemed  it 
safer  to  have  it  prefaced  by  a  com- 
mendatory statement  signed  by  four- 
teen "influential  gentlemen"  of  whom 
Wise  wis  one,  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
arming his  critics  and  possible  accus- 
ers. The  openmg  sentence  of  this 
statement  gives  evidence  of  the  in- 
flamed state  of  the  public  mind :  "So 
Odious  and  Abomnable  is  the  Name 
of  a  witch  to  the  Civilized,  much  more 
the  Religious  part  of  mankind,  that  it 
is  apt  to  grow  up  into  a  Scandal  for 
any  so  much  as  to  enter  some  sober 
cautions  against  the  over  hasty  sus- 
pecting, or  too  precipitant  Judging  of 
Persons  on  this  account."  Despite  the 
danger  implied  in  such  conditions 
when  anyone  speaking  a  word  in  favor 
of  a  witch  made  himself  an  object  of 
suspicion,  Wise^  with  several  of  his 
parishioners  signed  an  address  to  the 


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FOUNDER    OF    AMERICAN    DEMOCRACY 


Wise's  Grave,  Old  Burying  Ground,  Essex 

General  Court  in  behalf  of  John  Proc- 
tor, a  former  neighbor  and  at  that 
time  in  Salem  jail,  convicted  of  witch- 
craft and  awaiting  execution.  The  ad- 
dress was  unavailing  and  Proctor  was 
hanged;  but  in  1703  another  address 
signed  by  him,  urging  that  the  at- 
tainders attaching  to  the  families  of 
those  convicted  during  the  c'-Musion  be 
removed,  and  declaring  that  Miere  ^s 
great  reason  to  fear  that  iiiiK»ccnt  per- 
sons suffered,  and  tl  J/  Oou  may  have 
a  controversy  with  the  land  upon  that 
account"  was  more  successful.  An 
act  was  passed  to  the  effect  that  "the 
several  convictions,  judgments  and  at- 
tainders be  and  hereby  are  reversed 
and  declared  to  be  null  and  void."  Up- 
ham  in  his  "History  of  the  Salem 
Witchcraft"  says  of  Wise — "He  had  a 
free  spirit  and  was  perhaps  the  only 
minister  in  the  neighborhood  or  coun- 
try who  was  discerning  enough  to  see 
the  erroneousness  of  the  proceedings 
from  the  beginning." 

The  service  for  which  Wise  should 
be  held  in  veneration  by  posterity  was 


however  not  rendered  till  the  latter 
part  of  his  life.  It  consisted  in  the  con- 
tribution made  by  him  to  the  theory 
of  church  and  civil  government.  The 
occasion  which  led  to  his  discussion 
of  these  subjects  arose  from  certain 
proposals  made  by  an  association  of 
ministers  in  Boston.  The  principle  of 
Congregational  Church  government 
involves,  as  is  well  known,  a  very  high 
degree  of  independence  among  the 
several  churches  and  this  was  as  true 
in  the  18th  century  as  it  is  in  the 
20th :  but  in  the  early  part  of  tlie  for- 
mer, owing  to  a  somewhat  chaotic 
condition  prevailing  among  the 
churches  of  that  denomination,  and 
due  perhaps  in  part  to  their  indepen- 
dence, a  movement  was  begun  in  Bos- 
ton to  restrict  their  freedom  in  certain 
particulars.  Led  by  the  Mathers,  then 
potent  factors  in  New  England  social 
and  ecclesiastical  life,  a  council  met 
at  Boston  in  1705  and  drew  up  six- 
teen proposals  which  were  submitted 
to  the  various  churches  for  their  con 
sideration.  The  proposals  in  sub- 
stance, contemplated  a  change  in  the 
form  of  church  government  and  placed 
the  control  of  many  matters  formerly 
determined  by  the  separate  parishes 
in  the  hands  of  certain  councils  which 
were  to  decide  all  doubtful  points  and 
settle  all  disputes.  Wise  read  these 
proposals  and  although  highly  disap- 
proving of  them  as  of  ''something 
which  smells  very  strong  of  the  In- 
fallible chair"  and  as  containing  doc- 
trine subversive  of  democratic  prin- 
ciples, he  made  no  protest  at  the  time, 
oolieving  that  they  could  command  lit- 
tle support.  In  1 70S,  however,  the 
colony  of  Connecticut  adopted  meas- 
ures very  similar  to  those  contained  in 
the   proposals   and    Wise,  seeing   the 


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danger,  undertook  to  check  the  fur- 
ther spread  of  the  apostasy.  He  was 
completely  successful.  In  1710  ap- 
peared a  pamphlet  irom  his  pen 
entitled  "The  Churches'  Quarrel  Es- 
poused" in  which  he  took  vigorous  is- 
sue with  the  authors  of  the  proposals 
using  both  exhortation  and  satire  to 
emphasize  his  views.  Satire  was  an 
unusual  weapon  for  a  minister  to 
wield  in  that  austere  age,  but  in  Wise's 
hands  it  proved  so  effective  as  to  bring 
to  a  halt  the  campaign  of  the  Mathers, 
and  when  in  1717  he  published  a  sec- 
ond pamphlet,  "A  Vindication  of  the 
Government  of  New  England  Church- 
es" he  established  the  foundations  of 
Congr^;ationalism  so  firmly  that  they 
have  since  remained  in  all  essential 
respects  unshaken.  The  principles  of 
church  government  laid  down  by  him 
in  the  two  essays  mentioned  have  in- 
deed been  accepted  by  the  law  courts 
of  this  country  as  embodying  the  au- 
thoritative doctrine  of  the  Congrega- 
tional Church.  It  is,  however,  upon  the 
theorems  contained  in  his  second  es- 
say that  his  claim  as  the  founder  of 
American  democracy  must  principally 
rest.  The  essay  marks  him  as  the 
earliest  political  philosopher  in  Ameri- 
ca and  in  it  the  sentiments  of  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  are  express- 
ed in  language  as  clear  and  as  strong 
as  in  that  of  Jefferson's  famous  docu- 
ment. Written  sixty  years  before  the 
Declaration  and  a  generation  before 
the  essays  of  Hume  and  Montesquieu 
discussed  the  grounds  of  civil  govern- 
ment, the  views  which  he  so  boldly  set 
forth  were  shared  perhaps  by  Locke 
and  Pufendorf  alone  among  the  think- 
ers of  the  age,  and  neither  of  these 
philosophers  anticipated  the  spirit  or 
justified  the  armed  resistance  of  the 


Revolution  as  did  Wise.  What  vital 
principle  is  to  be  found  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  which  is  not  in- 
volved in  the  following  extracts  from 
Wise's  argument  for  free  government 
drawn  "from  the  1-ight  of  Nature"? 

"All  men  are  born  free,  and  nature 
having  set  all  men  upon  a  level  and  made 
them  equals,  no  servitude  or  subjection 
can  be  conceived  without  inequality." 

"The  first  human  subject  and  original 
of  civil  power  is  the  people." 

"When  the  subject  of  sovereign  power 
is  quite  extinct  that  power  returns  to  the 
people  again,  and  when  they  are  free 
they  may  set  up  what  species  of  govern- 
ment they  please." 

"The  formal  reason  of  government  is 
the  will  of  the  community." 

"A  civil  state  is  a  compound  moral 
person  .  .  .  whose  will  is  the  will  of  all." 

"The  end  of  all  good  government  is  to 
cultivate  humanity  and  promote  the  hap- 
piness of  all  and  the  good  of  every  man 
in  his  rights,  his  life,  liberty,  estate, 
honor,  etc.,  without  injury  or  abuse  done 
to  any." 

Though  Wise  was  the  first  man  in 
America  to  express  such  views  so  po- 
tent in  the  history  of  the  continent, 
and  probably  the  first  in  the  world  to 
so  clearly  express  them,  his  name  and 
his  services  have  been  consigned  to 
oblivion  by  the  historians  of  Democ- 
racy. In  a  speech  delivered  in  New 
York  on  Lincoln's  birthday,  Feb.  12th, 
I5>D3,  the  Hon.  George  S.  Boutwell 
is  quoted  as  saying:  "Jefferson  has 
left  five  immortal  words  not  before 
bound  together  in  one  phrase:  *A11 
men  are  created  equal.'"  It  will  be 
noticed  by  reference  to  the  first  ex- 
tract quoted  above  that  Wise  uttered 
this  exact  sentiment,  though  not  in 
terms  so  concise,  twenty-six  years  be- 
fore Jefferson  was  born.  The  differ- 
ence between  the  assertion  that  "All 


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FOUNDER   OF   AMERICAN   DEMOCRACY 


men  are  created  equal"  and  that  "na- 
ture" has  "set  all  men  upon  a  level 
and  made  them  equals"  is  one  merely 
of  words,  and  hence  unless  Jefferson's 
contribution  was  one  to  rhetoric  only, 
Wise  as  the  originator  of  the  dictum 
is  entitled  to  the  credit  which  the 
world  unites  in  bestowing  upon  Jef- 
ferson. Moreover  it  should  not  be 
forgotten  that  in  Wise's  day  such  an 
utterance  was  far  more  original  and 
divergent  from  the  prevailing  views 
than  in  1776.  To  be  sure,  faith  in 
the  doctrines  of  natural  inequality, 
such  as  the  divine  right  of  Kings,  had 
been  somewhat  shaken  as  early  as  the 
time  of  Wise,  but  the  idea  of  the  spe- 
cial prerogatives  of  royalty  had  but 
given  place  in  the  popular  mind  to  the 
special  privileges  of  Englishmen; 
whereas  by  the  time  of  the  Revolution 
the  mental  horizon  of  America  had 
become  illuminated  by  the  deeper  doc- 
trines of  "The  Rights  of  Man."  Wise 
anticipated;  those  doctrines,  and,  as 
one  on  a  mountain  peak,  perceived 
the  light  while  his  generation  re- 
mained in  shadow,  but  like  previous 
prophets  of  a  coming  age  his  services 
have  passed  from  the  memory  of 
n^en.  Commenting  on  this  neglect 
Prof.  Moses  Coit  Tyler  says: 

"It  is  an  illustration  of  the  caprice 
which  everywhere  prevails  in  the  do- 
main of  the  Goddess  Fame  that  the  one 
American  who,  upon  the  whole,  was  the 
most  powerful  and  brilliant  prose  writer 
in  this  country  during  the  colonial  time, 
and  who  in  his  day  enjoyed  a  sovereign 
reputation  in  New  England,  should  have 
passed  since  then  into  utter  obscurity, 
while  several  of  his  contemporaries  .  .  . 
who  were  far  inferior  to  him  in  genius, 
have  names  that  are  still  resounding  in 
our  memories." 

That  Wise's  work  was  an  important 


factor  in  moulding  public  opinion  in 
the  days  immediately  preceding  the 
Revolution  is  clearly  brotght  out  by 
the  fact  that  two  editions  of  his  essays 
of  five  hundred  copies  each  were  pub- 
lished in  1772,  of  which  it  has  been 
calculated  that  two  hundred  and  forty- 
nine  were  subscribed  for  in  Boston 
and  the  surrounding  towns,  the  very 
hot-bed  of  sedition.  In  fact  the  work 
was  a  sort  of  text  book  of  liberty  to 
the  patriots  of  the  time,  as  indeed  it 
was  the  obvious  intention  of  those 
who  caused  its  republication  that  it 
should  be.  Among  the  subscribers  to 
the  editions  of  1772  were  John  Scol- 
lay,  a  leader  of  the  Boston  Tea  Par- 
ty; Ebenezer  Dorr,  messenger  of  the 
Committee  of  Safety,  who  on  the 
night  of  April  i8th,  1775,  crossed 
Boston  Neck  and  carried  the  alarm  to 
Cambridge,  while  Paul  Revere  was 
riding  to  Lexington ;  Col.  James  Bar- 
rett, commander  of  the  Americans  at 
the  Battle  of  Concord,  and  Rev.  Ed- 
ward Emerson  of  Concord,  grandfath- 
er of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  and  one 
of  the  leaders  in  the  battle;  Timothy 
Pickering  of  Salem,  afterwards  Adju- 
tant General  of  the  Continental  Army 
and  Secretary  of  State  under  Wash- 
ington; j^rtemus  Ward  of  Shrews- 
bury, first  Commander-in-Chief  of  the 
Revolutionary  forces;  besides  many 
members  of  the  Provincial  Congress 
of  1775.  While  the  names  of  Adams, 
Hancock,  Warren,  Otis  and  other 
prominent  leaders  of  the  time  are  ab- 
sent from  the  list  of  subscribers  it  is 
probable  that  Wise's  work  was  famil- 
iar to  them  through  their  friendship 
with  those  who  subscribed.  It  was  the 
evident  purpose  of  many  of  the  sub- 
scribers to  thus  supply  their  friends 
interested  in  the  cause,   for  three- 


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Wm.  Dawes  of  Boston,  Ephraim  Fair- 
bank  of  Bolton  and  Peter  Jayne  of 
Marblehead — ^took  one  hundred  copies 
each,  and  many  others  took  from  six 
to  thirty-six  apiece.  Dawes  ,  indeed 
was  associated  with  the  famous  Bos- 
ton leaders  in  their  work.  He  was 
with  Paul  Revere  at  Lexington  and 
was  captured  with  him  while  attempt- 
ing to  carry  the  news  of  the  British 
approach  to  Concord. 

John  Wise  died  in  his  seventy-third 
year  on  the  8th  of  April,  1725,  at  his 
home  in  Chebacco.  On  his  death-bed 
he  said  to  his  son-in-law,  John  White 
of  Gloucester,  "I  have  been  a  man  of 
contention,  but  the  state  of  the 
churches  made  it  necessary.  Upon  the 
most  serious  review  I  can  say  I  have 
fought  a  good  Fight :  and  I  have  com- 
fort in  reflecting  upon  the  same :  I  am 
conscious  to  myself  that  I  have  acted 
sincerely." 

Had  he  not  been  a  man  of  conten- 
tion the  history  of  the  American  na- 
tion would  doubtless  have  been  dif- 
ferent   Not  that  its  essential  features 


would  have  been  altered;  they  were 
determined  by  the  character  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Colonial  times  of  whom  Wise 
was  himself  a  noble  t)rpe;  but  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  through  the 
confidence  inspired  in  the  Revolution- 
ary leaders  by  his  work  and  the  sanc- 
tion it  accorded  their  deeds,  he 
was  a  critical  factor  in  determining 
the  time  and  place  of  the  commence- 
ment of  the  struggle  for  the  liberation 
of  the  colonies,  and  in  that  determina- 
tion the  history  of  the  Revolution  and 
perhaps  its  immediate  issue  were  in- 
volved. Though  John  Wise's  deeds 
have  been  all  but  forgotten  by  his  pos- 
terity, and  his  services  but  obscurely 
recorded,  his  character  and  achieve- 
ments may  none  the  less  be  cherished 
by  Americans  as  a  product  of  the 
sanM  land  and  stock  of  which  they  are 
products,  and  his  grave  in  the  old 
burial  ground  at  Essex  may  be  in- 
vested with  the  veneration  accorded  to 
those  which  hold  the  dust  of  Ameri- 
ca's more  conspicuous,  but  not  more 
worthy  sons. 


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For  the  Resurrection 


By  Dora  Loomis  Hastings 


w 


^HERE'VE  you  been  all 
these  years?"  said 
Letty,  shaking  a  re- 
proachful finger  at 
the  coin.  If,  to  her  child's  fancy, 
the  least  shadow  of  a  smile  had  come 
upon  its  discolored  face,  she  would 
have  stamped  upon  it  without  hesi- 
tation. 

It  was  in  a  cornfield.  There  were 
pumpkin  vines  creeping  about  the 
feet  of  the  com,  their  great  yellow 
blossoms  and  balls  of  fruit  quite  as 
aesthetic  in  value  as  full  of  promise 
for  the  harvest  to  come.  Letty 
seated  herself  on  one  of  the  largest 
pumpkins  at  hand,  but  gently,  so 
that  she  might  not  disturb  the  bal- 
ance of  the  forces  of  its  growth. 
She  was  still  but  a  fairy  for  weight, 
her  slender  stem  of  body  topped  by 
a  dark  wide  face  almost  as  large  in 
proportion  as  a  flower  to  its  stalk. 
Her  head  drooped  now  as  she  stared 
at  the  five-dollar  gold  piece,  and  she 
propped  it  on  one  side  by  a  hand 
that  rested  on  her  knee. 

It  was  an  afternoon  in  late  Au- 
gust„  when  the  tide  of  the  summer 
had  reached  its  height.  The  colors 
of  the  year  were  rich  and  mellow, 
the  lush  greens  of  spring  had 
ripened,  and  the  brilliant  glow  of 
autumn's  decay  had  not  crept  in. 
There  was  rest  in  the  very  sunlight, 
as  if  the  summer  had  paused  to  feast 
upon  its  own  beauty  before  the  hand 

84 


of  the  spoiler  should  come.  Letty 
had  fallen  under  the  influence  of  the 
day,  though  like  one  who  listens  to 
exquisite  sound  that  brings  him  no 
thought;  it  had  simply  stilled  her 
senses  and  filled  her  heart  with  a 
joy  quite  unmixed  with  any  con- 
sciousness of  its  cause.  She  had 
lain  for  a  half  hour  on  the  rowen  at 
the  border  of  the  cornfield,  quite 
content  to  drift  along  on  the  clouds, 
slow  sailing  above,  and  thin  as  if 
they  were  flecks  of  foam,  till  by 
chance,  glancing  at  a  stone  in  the 
field,  she  had  spied  a  tiny  black  rim 
of  something  just  outlined  at  its 
edge.  On  being  drawn  from  its  hid- 
ing place  it  had  proved  to  be  a  coin. 
After  a  minute's  testing  of  size  and 
weight,  Letty  had  dropped  it  as  if 
some  evil  unseen  fire  had  set  it 
glowing.  "Oh,  myl"  she  had  ex- 
claimed three  times  before  she  had 
begun  to  talk  to  it  as  an  unrepentant 
culprit  brought  to  justice.  Now 
from  her  seat  of  state  she  went  on. 
"Did  you  hide  of  yourself?  Did 
you  put  out  little  feet  that  we  can't 
see  and  crawl  into  the  ground?  Or 
did  some  wicked  Brownie  pick  you 
up  and  tuck  you  under  a  stone,  and 
afterwards  sit  on  the  fence  and 
watch  and  laugh  when  Guy  Dreer 
hunted,  and  hunted,  and  huniedr* 
continued  Letty,  her  voice  walking 
up  the  ladder  of  the  "hunteds"  with 
crescendo  effect.    "Or,"  she  said  in 


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a  more  solemn  tone,  **wbs  it  in  that 
cave  somewhere  up  above  that 
mother  tells  about,  where  the  good 
angels  and  bad  angels  meet,  and  did 
one  of  the  bad  ones  make  you  and 
show  you,  and  say  you  were  worth 
the  whole  of  a  man's  heart?  *OnIy 
a  poor  crazy  heart/  said  one  of  the 
good  ones."  Letty's  big  imagfina- 
tion-fed  eyes  dilated  at  the  picture 
she  had  wrought. 

The  story  of  the  coin  was  one  of 
the  unwritten  tragedies  of  the  village. 
Guy  Dreer  had  lost  it  in  that  field 
when  a  boy,  and,  bitterly  and 
strangely  unreconciled  to  its  loss, 
had  searched  for  it  under  sun,  star 
and  moonlight  at  intervals  during 
more  than  two  score  years. 

"There's  Guy,"  people  said,  when 
on  passing  they  saw  his  down-bent 
figure  shuffling  about  the  field. 
"He's  got  a  spell  of  huntin'  on." 

"It's  something  more  than  money 
he's  hunting  for,"  said  a  man  once 
in  reply ;  "It  was  just  gold  at  the  start, 
but  now  it's  the  peace  of  his  soul.  I 
can't  explain — it's  queer,  but  it*s  true. 
You'll  sec  him  there  hunting  just 
before  some  trouble's  coming — like  a 
barometer  of  evil — a  death,  or  pest, 
or  awful  storm.  He  was  mooning 
there  days  before  the  river  rose  last 
spring.  The  foreshadowing  of  evil 
is  the  price  he's  been  paid  for  the 
peace  of  his  soul.  Every  man  ?s 
bound  to  get  something,  no  matter 
how  poor  a  soul  he's  got  to  sell. 
Ask  Parson  Curtin  what  he  thinks." 

Some  one  asked  Parson  Curtin, 
bat  his  mind  was  much  occupied  just 
then  with  a  sermon  that  was  to  set 
forth  and  establish  forever  in  Dil- 
lingwood  the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew 


sheol,  whether  merely  the  darkness  of 
the  unknown,  or  darkness  with  attri- 
butes of  pain  and  despair,  and  it 
could  not  be  diverted  from  its  great 
task.  As  a  result  of  the  remark 
about  "the  peace,"  however,  the 
young  people  held  a  meeting,  where 
each  one  was  asked  for  a  secret  con- 
tribution in  the  interest  of  Guy 
Dreer.  A  five-dollar  gold  piece  was 
obtained,  discolored  and  laid  cun- 
ningly in  his  way  in  the  cornfield. 
"He'll  find  it,"  they  said,  "and  quiet 
down,  perhaps."  It  was  wearisome 
enough  to  see  him,  a  very  omen  of 
evil,  on  a  gray  bleak  day,  when  sky 
and  wind  seemed  to  be  conspiring 
with  the  spiritual  elements  of  grief 
and  disappointment  to  make  one 
glad  of  the  inevitable  grave  that 
waits  him  somewhere  open  mouthed 
— ^wearisome  enough  to  see  Guy 
Dreer  hunting  miserably  for  a 
wretched  coin  that  he  would  never 
find.  No  reasoning  would  persuade 
him  to  desist.  "The  ploughsharcll 
turn  it  up  some  day,"  he  said  obsti- 
nately, in  reply  to  argument  or  en- 
treaty. Perhaps  this  other  coin 
would  satisfy  his  passionate  hunger 
for  the  lost  gold.  He  found  it  duly, 
but  those  who  were  hidden  in  the 
com  near  by,  expecting  to  hear  him 
cry  out  with  surprise  and  joy,  were 
disappointed.  After  a  while  they 
skulked  along  the  field  to  the  road, 
and  feigning  an  accidental  passing, 
called  out  to  him  to  know  what  he 
had  found. 

"It's  a  five-dollar  gold  piece,"  said 
Guy  huskily,  "but  it  ain't  mine." 

"An'  sure  enough,"  as  Uncle  Ben 
Bean  said  in  telling  the  story,  "in 
some   mysterious  way  the   crectur 


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knew  it  wa'n't  his,  and  kcp*  on 
huntin'." 

Letty's  own  mother  had  told  her 
that  when  he  was  dying  he  had  cried 
out  that  the  world  had  robbed  him ; 
and,  she  had  added  solemnly,  he  had 
gone  to  his  Maker  "with  that  charge 
upon  his  lips." 

It  was  not  strange  that  Letty  sat 
in  the  cornfield  that  August  day 
brooding  over  the  stories  of  Guy 
Dreer  and  staring  at  the  recreant 
coin,  while  the  sun  slowly  westered 
and  there  came  even  a  hint  of 
shadow  in  the  atmosphere.  She 
sprang  up  hurriedly  then.  Her  af- 
ternoon's leisure  was  almost  over. 
She  had  already  left  her  mother  too 
long.  Letty  was  only  eleven,  and, 
even  in  a  country  where  people  have 
incorporated  the  gospel  of  work  into 
their  creed,  was  entitled  to  immuni- 
ty from  hard  service  and  care;  but 
her  mother  had  been  an  invalid  for 
years,  and  from  her  "mattress 
grave**  had,  unwillingly  enough, 
been  compelled  to  train  Letty  almost 
from  babyhood  to  the  work  of  the 
house.  Mrs.  Payne  had  tried  to 
comfort  herself  as  best  she  might. 
They  were  alone  in  the  world,  the 
two  of  them,  and  she  knew  that  the 
limit  of  her  own  life  was  set  some- 
where within  the  next  score  of  years. 

"She'll  have  to  work  then," 
thought  the  mother — their  liveli- 
hood was  hardly  more  than  a  cot- 
tage, a  few  acres  of  land  and  a 
widow's  pension — "and  the  break- 
ing-in  will  be  a  hard  one.  Better 
now,  when  there's  love  to  make  it 
easier." 

She  had  tried  to  make  an  enter- 
tainment of  drudgery.  "Letty '11  be 
contented  all  day  making  sticks  and 


pebbles  talk,"  she  thought.  "It's 
the  satisfied  imagination  that  makes 
her  happy.  I'll  see  if  I  can't  coax  it 
to  play  about  the  work."  Thereon 
ensued  many  a  story  and  game. 
The  cups  and  plates  of  their  simple 
menage,  mere  dead  matter  hereto- 
fore, were  invested  with  life  and  the 
gift  of  speech,  and  told  many  a  story 
in  payment  for  the  work  of  little 
hands.  Their  repertory  was  varied, 
sometimes  simple  as  the  mother's 
fancy  at  its  lowest  ebb,  sometimes 
enriched  by  a  psychic  grace  and 
charm  borrowed  from  the  great 
Hans  Andersen.  Letty  listened 
greedily  to  these  entertainers,  as 
also  to  the  broom,  which,  vivified 
and  christened  "Brown  Annie,"  was 
made  to  tell  endless  stories  of  field 
and  wood.  There  was  the  story  of 
the  trillium  and  how  the  flowers  had 
tried  it  for  being  "too  red  to  be  hon- 
est," and  how  on  one  strange  day 
the  sunlight  had  cried,  and  how  once 
upon  a  time  by  mistake  a  violet  had 
been  given  half  a  beating  heart,  and 
how  it  had  won  the  other  half  and 
been  transformed  into  a  child,  and 
that  child's  story,  and  all  the  rest. 
The  uses  of  the  needle  were  also 
made  servitors  of  the  higher  uses  of 
ihe  imagination.  The  work  even 
then  was  distasteful  and  wearisome; 
but  when  Letty  had  stolen  to  her 
mother's  side,  her  eyes  heavy  with 
unshed  tears,  Mrs.  Payne  had  kissed 
the  tired,  dirty  little  hands,  and  told 
other  tales,  till  the  child's  fancy  had 
proved  healing  to  her  weariness,  like 
the  magic  bath  of  the  old  folk-lore. 
The  girl  had  paid  the  price.  Imagi- 
nation had  outrun  plodding  reason, 
and  she  had  lived  among  shadows 
and    preferred    unseen    playmates. 


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Still  time  would  correct  that  error, 
Mrs.  Payne  irusted — the  deed  would 
displace  the  dream — and  meanwhile 
she  had  learned  the  lessons  of  which 
her  future  stood  in  need. 

The  first  faint  gray  in  the  air  was 
like  a  distant  warning  bell  to  Letty. 
She  rose,  and  catching  up  the  coin, 
dropped  it  in  her  pocket  and  hurried 
on  through  the  com  to  the  road. 
She  was  just  turning  into  the  yard 
at  home  when  she  saw  Uncle  Ben 
Bean  sitting  in  the  shade  of  an  elm 
near  his  door.  The  two  houses 
were  neighboring.  Letty  stopped  to 
look  rather  wistfully  toward  Uncle 
Ben.  Letty  and  he  were  great 
cronies.  Uncle  Ben  knew  the  sto- 
ries of  three  generations,  and  as  age 
had  incapacitated  him  as  far  as  work 
was  concerned,  and  his  chief  oc- 
cupation was  to  sit  in  the  shade  or 
hoe  a  little  in  his  garden  in  summer 
and  sit  by  the  fire  in  winter,  the 
telling  of  his  stories  had  come  to  be 
sweeter  than  honey  in  the  honey- 
comb. Other  people,  however,  were 
usually  too  busy  to  listen,  and  as  he 
had  no  audience-compelling  eye  like 
that  of  the  Ancient  Mariner,  he  often 
went  dismally  for  weeks  without  a 
hearer.  It  was  a  happy  morning  for 
him  when  Letty,  who  had  regarded 
him  shyly  for  a  long  time  from  her 
own  place  of  abode,  ventured  over 
within  reach  of  his  voice.  In  the 
course  of  the  hour  she  had  curled  up 
at  his  side,  her  rapt  face  the  most  de- 
licious flattery  that  a  story  teller 
could  wish.  A  few  words  to  Letty 
were  like  the  smoke  that  rose  from 
the  fire  made  by  the  wicked  magi- 
cian when  he  was  beguiling  Aladdin 
— they  created  a  new  country,  and 
Letty  wandered  there  as  free  from 


the  insistent  memory  that  drags  us 
back  to  time  and  self  as  if  she  had 
laid  away  her  identity  like  a  gar- 
ment. There  was  hardly  a  day  now 
when  she  did  not  find  an  hour  to 
spend  with  Uncle  Ben.  He  had 
missed  her  sorely  that  afternoon,  and 
hailed  her  eagerly. 

"Where've  you  been?"  he  de- 
manded, bending  toward  her  his 
keen  humorous  eyes,  set  in  a  face 
almost  as  wrinkled  as  an  overbaked 
apple. 

"Over  to  Mrs.  Eldridge's,"  replied 
Letty.  "I  went  to  ask  her  to  come 
over  to  tea  to-morrow.  Mother 
wants  to  have  her." 

•*Is  she  comjn'?" 

"Maybe;  she  thought  she  would 
if  Hattie  didn't  come  home  with  her 
three  children — she's  some  expect- 
ing her.". 

"H'm!"  said  Uncle  Ben.  That 
was  his  usual  comment  upon  news 
of  all  sorts. 

"I  came  'cross  lots  through  the 
corn." 

**I  saw  you." 

"Where  Guy  Dreer  lost  that  gold 
piece."  Letty  had  determined  not 
to  tell  Uncle  Ben  of  her  discovery 
until  she  had  thought  it  over  care- 
fully, but  she  wanted  to  make  him 
talk. 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  said  meditatively; 
"yes,  yes." 

"He's  been  dead  a  long  time  now," 
remarked  Letty,  as  if  the  quality  of 
being  dead  was  intensified  by  tin^e. 

"Not  so  very — not  so  very.  Let 
me  see;  when  was  it  he  died?  It 
was  when  Cass  was  runnin'  for  Pres- 
ident." 

"Cass?"  repeated  Letty  interrog- 
atively. 


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*'Yes.  It  ain't  possible  you  never 
heard  of  Lewis  Cass?"  ^ 

"No,  I  never  did."  replied  Letty, 
reddening. 

"Jiminy!"  exclaimed  Uncle  Ben, 
quite  unaware  that  he  was  swearing 
by  two  pagan  deities  at  once, 
"What's  the  world  a-comin'  to? 
People'll  be  forgettin'  Columbus  be- 
fore long!" 

"But  Guy  Dreer,"  insisted  Letty, 
rather  sensitive  about  such  an  ex- 
posure of  ignorance. 

"He  was  a  queer  ticket,"  said 
Uncle  Ben.  "Whenever  it  wa*s  he 
died,  I  guess  a  teaspoon  would  h<Md 
all  the  tears  that  was  shed  for  him. 
I  used  to  hear  him  moanin'  on  some- 
times about  that  money,  and  layin' 
it  out  in  things  in  his  mind,  like  lum- 
ber and  shingles  and  such.  Says  he, 
'There's  most  a  half  a  thousand  of 
hemlock  that  ought  to  be  mine 
somewhere,  an'  I  shall  never  get  it.' 
I  told  Sile  Hoppin,  an'  he  said  he 
guessed  it  was  the  minister's  fee 
that  Guy  had  lost,  an'  th?.t's  why  he 
never  could  get  married."  Uncle 
Ben  paused  to  laugh. 

"What  if  somebody  found  the 
money?"  asked  Letty,  hesitating. 

"What  if  they  did?"  retorted 
Uncle  Ben.  "I  guess  not.  But  if 
it  ever  should  happen,  the  one  that 
gets  it  had  better  look  out — come 
dark." 

"Why?"  asked  Letty,  her  face 
paling. 

"Because  Guy  might  be  after  it. 
It  would  draw  him  out  of  Heaven, 
I  should  think — if  he's  there,"  he 
added  dryly. 

"Oh !"  said  Letty,  her  hands  shak- 
ing slightly  on  the  fence.  "I  won- 
der!    Such  things  don't  really  and 


truly  happen,  do  they,  Uncle  BcnT' 
she  pleaded.  "Honor  bright,  now, 
do  they?" 

"Well,"  said  Uncle  Ben,  with  a 
rising  inflection,  "there  was  a  man 
over  in  Derwent  that  died.  He  had 
a  silver  spoon  that  he'd  had  all  his 
life,  and  thought  a  lot  of — and — it 
went  away,"  said  Uncle  Ben  with 
ominous  emphasis. 

"Oh !"  exclaimed  Letty  hurriedly. 

"But  I  don't  believe  in  'em  myself. 
I  never  see  one.  Never  credit  one 
unless  you  can  put  your  finger  on 
him  and  feel  he  ain't  there.  That's 
my  idea.  And  no  matter  what  you 
hear  or  think,  don't  get  scared ;  you 
can  keep  em  off  that  way  if  any 
way." 

"Oh!"  exclaimed  Letty  again,  as 
if  a  little  out  of  breath.  "I  guess  I 
must  go  in  now  and  get  supper." 
She  did  not  wait  for  Uncle  Ben's 
last  injunction  not  to  get  scared,  but 
it  followed  her  as  she  went  toward 
the  house. 

Mrs.  Payne  was  lying  on  the  sofa 
as  Letty  had  left  her,  her  book  and 
sewing  laid  aside  now  in  the  coming 
twilight.  Letty  ran  into  the  room 
quickly,  but  quietly,  to  her  mother's 
side,  where  she  leaned  to  kiss  the  tip 
of  her  mother's  slipper.  These 
kisses  falling  on  such  unexpected 
places  were  Letty's  jests,  and,  as 
usual,  the  two  people  clung  to  each 
other  a  minute  and  laughed  like 
schoolgirls. 

"I've  been  gone  so  long,"  said 
Letty  repentantly,  after  she  had  re- 
ported the  success  of  her  errand. 
"I  didn't  mean  to  be.  I'll  make  a 
fire  and  get  supper  now."  She  went 
into  the  kitchen  and  busied  herself 
about   her   work,   but   her   thought 


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went  constantly  toward  that  treas- 
ure-trove in  her  pocket.  "I  won't 
tell  mother/'  she  said  to  herself. 
"It  might  worry  her.  She  might — 
expect  him — ^who  knows?"  and  Let- 
ty  cast  a  look  of  terror  toward  the 
deepening  shade  of  the  trees.  When 
she  had  carried  in  the  tray  to  her 
mother,  she  did  not  stay  and  chat- 
ter, as  was  her  wont,  but  returned  to 
the  kitchen.  She  went  to  a  window 
and,  her  cheek  against  a  pane,  stared 
toward  the  sky.  The  sight  was  too 
suggestive.  She  turned  away  trem- 
bling. 

"If  he  should  come  he'd  have  to 
put  his  hand  in  my  pocket,"  she 
thought.  "Oh,  my  1  I  couldn't  even 
bear  to  have  him  come  into  the 
house.    What  shall  I  do?" 

She  drew  tho  money  out  of  her 
pocket,  and  after  a  minute's  delibera- 
tion hurried  stealthily  from  the 
house.  She  ran  to  an  apple  tree. 
It  was  an  easy  tree  to  climb,  as  she 
knew  by  trial,  and  up  near  the  top 
was  an  empty  bird's  nest ;  a  pair  of 
kingbirds  had  built  there  the  sum- 
mer before.  Letty  mounted  the  tree 
with  a  quick  sure  step,  found  the 
empty  nest,  and  put  the  gold  piece 
therein  in  haste,  as  if  she  feared  a 
cold  hand  might  seize  it  while  it  was 
still  in  her  own.  She  started  to  de- 
scend, but  went  back  and  broke 
away  some  branches  that  overtopped 
the  nest.  Above  the  treasure  should 
be  a  clear  unbroken  sky.  He  could 
not  fail  to  notice  then  if  so  be  he  was 
watching.  When  she  had  regained 
the  house  she  found  her  mother  still 
busy  with  her  chocolate  and  wafers, 
and  quite  unobservnnt  of  Ker  own 
doings. 

Letty      got      some      paper      and 


after  long  and  earnest  thought  wrote 
thereon : 

Mr.  Guy  Dreer. 

Dear  Sir;  I  found  it  in  the  corn.     It 
was  under  a  stone.    If  you  are  up  there 
and  see  it,  you  can  come  down  and  get  it . 
Yours  respectfully, 

Letty  May  Payne. 

She  folded  the  paper  neatly,  wrote 
"Mr.  Guy  Dreer"  on  the  outside, 
and,  after  some  hesitation,  "Angel" 
in  the  lower  left-hand  comer,  went 
out  to  the  apple  tree  again,  and, 
climbing,  put  it  in  the  nest. 

"There!"  she  excliaimed  trium- 
phantly when  she  was  again  on  the 
ground.  A  great  burden  oi  respon- 
sibility and  fear  had  been  lifted  from 
her  mind.  She  sang  as  she  went  on 
with  her  work  or  prattled  to  her 
mother,  who  lay  in  the  hush  of  the 
rest-bringing  night  and  was  as  glad 
as  if  an  unseen  healing  hand  had 
been  laid  on  her  weary  head. 

When  morning  came  Letty  woke 
early,  and  seeing  her  mother  still 
asleep,  dressed  and  slipped  noise- 
lessly from  the  room.  She  went  out 
to  the  apple  tree  again  to  see  if  he 
had  come  and  taken  away  his  own. 
The  gold  piece  was  still  in  the  nest. 
Her  face  fell  at  the  sight  of  it.  She 
wondered  why  he  had  not  come. 
Could  it  be  that  he  was  not  allowed 
to  stray  so  far  away,  or  was  he 
sleeping  still?  How  could  there  be 
a  resurrection  and  a  judgment  day 
unless  people  slept  till  then?  Her 
meditations  were  broken  by  the 
sound  of  a  hoe,  and  looking  across 
the  yard  she  saw  Uncle  Ben  potter- 
ing about  in  his  garden.  She  de- 
scended quickly  and  went  to  the 
partition  fence. 


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"Uncle  Ben!"  she  called.  "What 
do  you  think?  Do  you  think  they 
fly  about  in  the  air  right  off,  or  do 
you  think  they  sleep  awhile?" 

Uncle  Ben  stared.  "What  is  the 
child  talkin'  about?"  he  said. 

"Spirits — ^folks  that  are  buried," 
she  explained.  "Do  you  think  they 
are  let  out  to  run  around,  as  you  told 
of  yesterday,  or  do  you  think  they 
are  put  to  sleep  till  they  hear  a 
horn?" 

Uncle  Ben  cut  off  a  piece  from  a 
cake  of  tc^bacco,  and  went  on  to 
chew  that  delicious  morsel  and  the 
cud  of  thought  together. 

"I  d'know,  Letty,"  he  said  at 
length.  "It's  a  trifle  confusin' — 
confusin'.  There's  the  *To-day  thou 
shalt  be  with  me,'  that  the  Lord  said 
to  the  thief,  and  then  again  Paul 
says  positive,  'The  trumpet  shall 
sound  and  the  dead  shall  be  raised.' 
Sometimes  seems  to  me  as  if  there 
must  be  a  different  chronology  up 
there,  not  havin'  any  sun  or  moon  to 
go  by.  Maybe  it's  a  different  kind 
of  a  revolution  they  reckon  on. 
Maybe  they  all  sleep,  an'  think  it's 
been  only  a  night's  rest  when  they 
hear  the  call  to  rise.  Perhaps  that's 
the  way." 

"Do  you  suppose  they're  all  happy 
when  they  wake?  Guy  Dreer,  now? 
It  says  on  his  gravestone,  *In  the 
hope  of  a  blessed  resurrection.'  Do 
you  suppose  it  will  come  true?" 

Unde  Ben  shook  his  head.  'They 
say  the  streets  are  paved  with  it 
there,  but  it  wouldn't  any  of  it  be 
that  particular  bit  he  lost.  I  can't 
tell— it's  puzzlin'." 

"So  it  is,"  said  Letty,  withdraw- 


ing toward  the  house,  for  she  heard 
her  mother  calling. 

At  dusk  that  evening,  when  Mrs. 
Payne,  wearied  by  the  afternoon's 
unusual  excitement — ^for  Mrs.  El- 
dridge  had  come  early  and  stayed 
late — had  fallen  asleep,  Letty  left 
the  house  and  stole  rapidly  down 
the  road.  When  she  reached  the 
cemetery  she  stopped,  and  with 
some  fluttering  of  heart  stepped  into 
that  consecrated  place.  She  was 
very  familiar  with  it,  for  she  had 
often  wandered  there  when  she  had 
gone  to  visit  the  stone  that  marked 
no  grave,  but  told  how  her  soldier 
father  had  died  at  Shiloh.  On  Dec- 
oration Day  it  was  her  pride  to  wrap 
the  great  silk  flag  that  •ne  of  his 
comrades  had  sent  them  about  the 
stone.  She  went  straight  to  her  ob- 
jective point  between  Leander  Sands 
and  "Melicent,  his  wife,"  and  little 
Anise  Eames,  **gathered  in" — Guy 
Dreer's  neglected  grave.  Standing 
there,  she  made  out  as  well  as  she 
could — it  was  a  grewsome  reckon- 
ing— ^where  his  right  hand  would 
lie.  She  knelt,  cut  away  a  bit  of 
turf,  and  with  a  trowel  that  she 
had  brought  dug  down  into  the 
the  soil  as  far  a^  she  could  reach. 
She  placed  the  coin  in  the  narrow 
shaft  and  put  back  the  earth  and 
turf. 

"There!"  she  thought,  when  all 
was  done.  "He'll  find  it  when  he 
wakes;  and  maybe  his  resurrec- 
tion'U  be  a  blessed  one,  after  all." 

Then  she  fled  across  the  darken- 
ing enclosure,  as  if  the  very  shadows 
had  come  to  life  and  were  following 
close  upon  her  heels. 


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When  Grace  Was  Given 


By  George  Austin  Barnes 


A' 


N'  Zibe  said  there  was  as 
many  as  three  thousand 
people  on  the  grounds 
yesterday ;  an'  I  bet  there 
was  more'n  that."  June  Hull 
paused  in  his  recital  to  allow  his 
listeners  to  grasp  the  magnitude  of 
his  assertion,  and  then  continued, 
"Mr.  Bedo  preached  in  the  eycnin', 
an'  the  mourners'  bench  was 
crowded,  an'  nine  found  g^ace. 
They  stayed  up  till  after  midnight 
wrastlin'  with  old  man  Otto,  but  he 
got  through  finally.  The  Spirit  is 
with  them  surely." 

The  evening  breeze  moved  the 
tree  tops  gently,  and  from  the  bam 
came  the  sounds  of  rattling  trace 
chains  and  lowing  cattle.  An  over- 
grown boy  swung  on  the  gate,  and 
the  squeak  of  the  hinges  and  clank 
of  the  chain  and  ball  blended  with 
the  other  sounds  and  became  a  part 
of  the  twilight.  From  the  woods 
echoed  the  distant  report  of  a  gun. 
"I  ain't  questionin'  the  ways  of 
Providence,"  said  Mrs.  Fout,  con- 
tentiously,  drawing  her  chair  for- 
ward into  the  doorway,  "but  it  docs 
seem  to  me  that  the  ones  would  be 
reached  who  need  it  most,  if  it's  the 
Spirit  that's  with  them.  Now, 
there's  them  three  Jackson  boys, 
the  most  shiftless,  no-account  boys 
that  ever  lived;  never  workin',  but 
just  movin'  up  an'  down  the  coun- 
try, swearin',  an'  drinkin',  an' 
fightin'.    Never  a  pleasant  Sunday 


but  you  hear  them  in  the  woods 
an'  along  the  crick,  huntin'  an' 
fishin'.  Why  don't  the  Spirit  strive 
with  them,  instead  of  lettin'  them 
go  on  in  their  sin,  leadin'  other  boys 
into  bad  ways?  They've  tried  to 
coax  Norval  away  with  them  more 
than  once.  But  Norval  knows  bet- 
ter than  to  go  traipsin'  around  the 
country  with  them  boys;  and  be- 
sides he  knows  I  think  fishin'  is  a 
sinful  waste  of  time.  Norval  is  too 
well  brought  up  to  do  anything  I 
don't  believe  in,"  she  concluded, 
with  evident  pride. 

June  turned  to  the  husband  and 
winked  meaningly,  but  an  uxorious 
fealty  prevented  Mr.  Fout  from 
participating  in  the  joke.  Mrs. 
Font's  methods  in  the  upbringing 
of  her  son  were  matters  of  common 
comment  and  ridicule  among  her 
neighbors.  It  was  asserted  by  her 
critics  that  the  boy  would  never 
amount  to  anything  under  her  sys- 
tem of  coercion  and  suppression; 
but  she  met  all  such  cavillers  with 
the  retort  that  he  was  her  only 
child  and  should  be  brought  up  ac- 
cording to  her  own  lights.  "He 
ain't  never  made  me  any  trouble, 
because  he  knows  it  ain't  best  for 
him  to  do  anything  I  tell  him  not 
to.  If  parents  would  do  their  duty 
by  their  children,  the  country 
wouldn't  be  full  of  godless,  disre- 
spectful young  ones.  There  ain't 
another  child  in  this  state  like  Nor- 

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WHEN    GRACE   WAS   GIVEN 


val,  and  hell  live  to  see  the  day 
he'll  thank  me  for  settin'  him 
right." 

It  was  only  another  way  of  say- 
ing that  she  thanked  God  that  her 
son  was  not  like  other  children,  and 
she  was  not  like  other  mothers,  and, 
considering  her  constant  claim  to 
exact  orthodoxy,  she  took  an  incon- 
sistent pride  in  holding  Norval  and 
her  superior  wisdom  up  to  the  gaze 
of  her  neighbors.  Whenever  a 
youth  or  man  of  the  community 
went  wrong  she  placed  the  blame, 
not  with  the  individual,  but  with 
the  parental  system  that  had  made 
such  a  moral  lapse  possible.  "Do 
you  think,"  she  said  once,  when  the 
mother  of  a  prodigal  greeted  her 
son  with  open  arms,  "that  I  could 
ever  forgive  Norval  if  he  should  be 
like  that  boy? — if  such  a  thing  was 
possible.  Never !  It  wouldn't  make 
any  difference  if  he  was  on  his 
dyin'  bed,  I  couldn't  do  it.  I  should 
always  see  the  stain  of  sin  on  his 
brow  and  smell  the  odor  of  liquor 
on  his  lips." 

June  moved  his  chair  and  coughed 
exasperatingly.  He  was  the  only 
person  in  the  locality  who  dared  to 
openly  affront  Mrs.  Font.  "It  is 
the  Lord's  work,"  he  repeated  dog- 
matically. 

"If  it's  the  Lord's  work,  let  Him 
go  after  them  that  needs  His  Spirit 
^  most,"  Mrs.  Font  retorted  with  as- 
perity. 

June  held  up  a  warning  finger, 
"Don't  question  the  Spirit,  Mis' 
Font.  When  the  grain  is  ripe  it'll 
be  harvested." 

"It'll  be  harvested  by  Satan  be- 
fore long,  then." 

June   made   no   reply   for   a   mo- 


ment. "Well,  it's  the  Lord's  work, 
surely,  by  His  chosen  people,"  he 
repeated  stubbornly. 

"The  Methodists  ain't  any  more 
His  chosen  people  than  the  Presby- 
terians or  any  one  else,"  retorted 
Mrs.  Font  combatively.  "Shoutin' 
your  prayers  ain't  goin'  to  get  yott 
to  heaven  any  quicker  than  prayin' 
by  yourself." 

"Mebby  not,  mebby  not;  but 
there's  more  heart  in  'em,"  re- 
sponded June.  Then,  with  an  at- 
tempt at  mollification,  feeling  that 
he  had  sufficiently  irritated  her,  he 
said,  "Zibe's  folks  are  all  goin'  over 
on  Sunday  and  I'm  goin'  with  them. 
You'd  better  go,  Robert,"  turning 
to  Mr.  Font,  who  sat  silently  on  the 
steps,  his  open  knife  in  one  hand 
and  a  whittled  stick  in  the  other. 
"It's  goin'  to  be  the  biggest  day  of 
the  meetin'  an'  the  whole  country'U 
be  there.  You  can  start  early  an' 
take  your  dinner  with  you,  eat  in 
the  woods  an'  drive  home  in  the 
evenin',  when  it's  cool." 

Mr.  Font  shut  and  pocketed  his 
knife.  "I  don't  care  much  to  make 
a  holiday  of  the  Sabbath,  even  if 
'tis  to  go  to  camp  meetin',"  he  said. 

"Well,  now  I'd  just  like  to  go  an' 
see  what  sort  of  carryin'-ons  they 
have,"  said  his  wife.  "If  we  stay 
at  home,  you'll  go  traipsin'  over  to 
some  of  the  neighbors  to  whittle  an' 
talk  all  afternoon;  an'  I  haven't 
been  anywhere  for  months.  I  just 
believe  we'd  better  go.  I'll  set  out 
a  cold  bite  for  the  men,  an'  we  can 
take  Norval  with  us." 

With  a  wisdom  bom  of  expe- 
rience, Mr.  Font  made  no  reply,  but 
commenced  to  lay  his  plans  for  the 
enforced    absence.    June,    satisfied 


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WHEN   GRACE  WAS   GIVEN 


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that,  despite  her  scoffing,  Mrs. 
Fout's  curiosity  had  overcome  her 
antagonism  to  the  sect  in  which  he 
was  a  lukewarm  convert,  lapsed 
into  silence. 

Deprived  of  June's  argument  and 
meeting  no  opposition  to  her  plan 
from  her  husband,  Mrs.  Font 
turned  to  the  boy,  who  had  aban- 
doned the  gate  and  was  walking 
unsteadily  along  the  top  board  of 
the  fence. 

"Norval  Font!  you  come  right  in 
here  this  minute,"  she  cried.  "What 
d'you  mean  by  such  actions  any- 
how? Youll  tear  your  clothes 
next  thing  you  know.  Why  can't 
you  behave  like  you  ought?" 

Startled  by  her  voice,  the  boy 
with  difficulty  retained  his  equilib- 
rium. 

"I  ain't  doin'  nothin',  ma.  Why 
can't  I—" 

"You  come  right  in  here.  It's 
time  you  was  in  bed,  anyhow." 

The  boy  climbed  down  and  came 
slowly  up  the  path.  Long  expe- 
rience had  taught  him  the  futility 
of  rebellion  or  argfument,  but  in  his 
slouching  gait  and  lowering  eyes 
was  reflected  a  spirit  that  some  day 
would  overthrow  his  mother's  re- 
straint and  dominion  forever. 

The  intervening  days  were  full  of 
work  and  planning  for  Mrs.  Font, 
of  placid  acquiescence  for  her  hus- 
band, and  of  eager  anticipation  for 
Norval.  Holidays  were  rare,  and 
the  farmers  and  their  families  often 
longed  for  the  companionship  and 
excitement  of  a  crowd.  To  Norval 
it  was  the  long  desired  opportunity 
to  witness  something  of  the  glories 
of  the  great  outside  world  from 
which  he  had  been  withheld  for  so 


long.  Never  again  would  the  other 
boys  be  able  to  twit  him  on  his  igno- 
rance of  the  world  and  the  subjec- 
tion that  deprived  him  of  even  the 
joys  of  a  picnic  or  play  party. 

Day  was  just  breaking  on  Sunday 
when  they  drove  out  of  the  barn- 
yard. A  light  mist  lay  in  the  val- 
leys and  along  the  streams,  but  the 
hilltops  were  already  aglow  with 
the  morning  sun.  The  roadside 
bushes  were  coated  with  dust, 
which  rose  in  clouds  around  the 
vehicle  and  transformed  the  black 
Sunday  clothes  of  the  pilgrims  into 
gjay;  and  as  the  sun  rose  higher 
the  heat  became  oppressive.  When 
they  turned  the  comer  past  the  nar- 
row strip  of  woods  that  hid  the 
town  from  view,  they  saw  that 
June's  prediction  as  to  the  attend- 
ance that  day  was  verified.  Horses 
were  tied  to  the  fences  on  both  sides 
of  the  road,  and  from  the  woods 
came  the  sound  of  their  stamping 
and  neighing  and  the  voices  of  men. 

They  drove  down  the  road,  now 
narrowed  to  a  lane  by  the  encroach- 
ing vehicles  of  all  descriptions,  and 
past  the  little  village  of  white  tents, 
where  the  woods  thinned  out  pre- 
paratory to  its  final  dispersion  in 
the  open  fields. 

It  was  breakfast  time  at  the 
gfrounds.  An  appetizing  odor  of 
coffee  and  frying  meats  lingered  on 
the  morning  air,  and  from  the  tents 
came  the  clatter  of  dishes.  Through 
the  open  flap  of  one  tent  they  saw 
a  half-dressed  man  sitting  on  the 
edge  of  a  rough  bed,  lacing  his 
shoes ;  from  another  came  the  sound 
of  fervent  singing;  and  from  yet 
another  a  man's  voice,  raised  in 
vociferous      supplication      at      the 


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WHEN    GRACE  WAS   GIVEN 


Thronp  of  Grace.  They  unhitched 
their  horses  under  a  tree  in  the  open 
field  and  joined  the  campers,  who, 
augmented  by  the  people  that  had 
already  arrived,  were  falling  in  be- 
hind the  preachers,  who  marched 
ahead,  singing  an  almost  rollicking 
revivalist's  hymn.  The  grove  re- 
sounded with  song.  The  campers 
were  gathering  for  their  morning 
"ring-meeting,"  where  each  of  the 
converts  stepped  into  the  circle 
formed  by  his  comrades  and  gave 
his  "testimony." 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Fout  followed  the 
succeeding  services  eagerly,  but  to 
the  boy  Norval  the  succession 
of  ring-meetings,  morning  prayer- 
meeting  and  preaching  seemed  un- 
ending. The  bare  plank  on  which 
he  sat  grew  harder  with  each  ma- 
ternal admonition;  his  shoes  hurt 
his  feet,  unused  to  restraint;  and 
the  shade  of  the  deeper  woods 
looked  fascinating  to  him  in  the 
midday  glare.  He  thought  long- 
ingly of  the  cool  depths  and  soft 
banks  in  the  home  woods.  When 
the  congregation  arose  to  sing,  with 
a  final  rebellious  effort,  he  slipped 
unnoticed  from  his  mother's  side 
and  was  instantly  lost  in  the  crowd. 
There  were  many  other  children  of 
all  ages  on  the  grounds,  and  Norval 
stopped  and  talked  bashfully  with 
several.  One  boy  offered  him  some 
candy,  which  was  eagerly  accepted, 
and  then  proposed  that  they  trade 
knives,  if  Norval  wasn't  afraid  to 
trade  "unsight  an'  unseen."  Al- 
though "swapping"  of  any  charac- 
ter had  from  his  infancy  been  rep- 
resented to  Norval  as  one  of  the 
chief  e\'idences  of  an  unregenerate 
nature  and  as  a  licensed  stage  on 


the  highway  of  sin,  systematic  sup- 
pression of  natural  proclivities  had 
fostered  a  spirit  that  was  irre- 
pressible in  this  first  moment  of 
his  new  freedom,  and  the  implied 
disparagement  of  his  courage  was 
not  to  be  bome^  by  the  flesh  of 
a  boy. 

Fist  in  hand,  the  exchange  was 
made ;  but  the  strange  boy  resented 
the  loss  of  a  better  knife  by  a  blow 
that  made  Norval's  nose  bleed  and 
precipitated  a  fight  which  was  sud- 
denly ended  by  the  strong  hand  of 
Jake  Jackson,  who  held  Norval  at 
arm's  length  and  surveyed  him 
critically. 

"Well,  won't  your  mother  be 
hoppin'  mad  when  she  sees  you, 
with  your  coat  torn  an'  your  face 
lookin'  like  that!"  Jake  said  exult- 
ingly.  "Won't  she  be  mad  I  You'd 
better  come  along  down  to  the 
spring  an'  bathe  your  eye;  it  11 
be  as  black  as  a  crow  in  a 
minute." 

Norval  whimpered  when  the  cold 
water  touched  his  raw  flesh.  His 
mother's  system  of  isolation  was 
not  calculated  to  make  a  Spartan  of 
him,  and  this  was  his  first  real 
fight. 

"Come  along  now,"  said  Jake, 
after  he  had  treated  the  eye  with 
suspicious  .  science.  "You're  all 
right." 

Mindful  of  his  mother's  warnings 
against  associating  with  the  Jack- 
son boys,  Norval  hung  back,  but 
Jake  seized  his  arm  and  drew  him 
along.  On  their  way  back  to  the 
grounds  they  met  the  other  Jackson 
boys,  Jim  and  Tom.  They  had 
been  drinking,  and  offered  whiskey 
to  Jake,  who  drank  greedily  from 


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WHEN    GRACE   WAS   GIVEN- 


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the  bottle,  while  Nerval  looked  on 
in  open-mouthed,  horrified  silence. 

"What's  the  matter  with  the 
babyr'  asked  Tom.  "That's  an 
awful  lookin'  eye." 

"Better  bathe  it  in  whiskey,"  sug- 
gested Jim,  winking  at  his  brothers, 
"itil  take  the  soreness  out." 

Willing  to  try  anything  to  re- 
lieve the  throbbing  numbness  of 
his  bruised  eye,  that  the  jar  of 
every  step  transformed  into  excru- 
ciating pain,  Norval  saturated  his 
handkerchief  with  whiskey  and  ap- 
plied it  to  his  face,  but  dropped  it 
with  a  scream  of  pain. 

"Here,  you  calf !  take  a  drink  and 
get  your  sand  up,"  cried  Tom,  seiz- 
ing him  as  he  tried  to  escape.  He 
struggled  frantically,  but  they 
closed  around  him  and  smothered 
bis  screams. 

Mrs.  Fout  did  not  worry  at  Ner- 
val's disappearance,  supposing  he 
was  with  his  father,  who  had  wan- 
dered away  to  visit  with  the  men. 
She  ate  her  dinner  alone  and  fed  the 
horses,  with  many  an  anxious 
glance  toward  the  west,  where 
banks  of  black  clouds  were  gather- 
ing and  distant  thunder  presaged  a 
storm,  and  then  hurried  back  to  her 
seat.  The  ministers  had  formed  for 
a  line  attack  on  the  forces  of  Satan. 
The  forenoon  had  been  a  season  of 
prayer  and  singing,  of  supplication 
and  warning;  and  the  afternoon 
was  the  culmination  of  the  morn- 
ing's striving.  Through  the  open- 
ings in  the  trees  the  sun  beat  down 
mercilessly  upon  the  congregation 
and  smote  the  bare  heads  at  the 
moum«rs'  bench,  but  the  heat 
seemed  only  to  increase  their  zeal. 
The     picked    preachers    surpassed 


themselves  in  passionate  exhorta- 
tions; a  spiritual  tempest  passed 
through  the  grove. 

Despite  her  scoffing,  Mrs.  Fout 
was  strangely  affected  by  the  phys- 
ical excitement  of  the  scene  and  the 
impassioned  pleading.  She  felt  a 
growing  impulse  to  leap  to  her  feet, 
to  fling  her  arms  above  her  head,  to 
shout,  to  sing, — anything.  A  feel- 
ing of  spiritual  exultation  was  fast 
stealing  away  her  strong  sense  of 
propriety.  Her  husband  roused  her 
by  a  touch  on  the  shoulder.  "Come," 
he  said,  and  she  followed  him  out 
of  the  crowd,  silenced  by  a  premo- 
nition of  impending  calamity. 

"What  is  it?"  she  questioned. 

"Nothin',  mother,  nothin'.  Nor- 
val's  just  been  fightin',  an'—" 

June  Hull  came  toward  them  and 
beckoned  Mr.  Fout  aside.  They 
conversed  together  in  whispers. 

"What  is  it,  Robert  r  she  cried, 
and  then  paused  at  the  sound  of 
June's  low  spoken  "If  we  can  find  the 
constable  we  can  get  him  out,  I 
guess." 

She  looked  away  down  the  dusty 
road  toward  the  village  and  intui- 
tively understood.  Some  place 
down  there  was  her  boy,  a  common 
brawler,  a  prisoner.  With  an  irre- 
sistible surge  her  mother's  love  rose 
and  engulfed  the  theories  of 
thought  and  action  she  had  held 
and  propagated  ever  since  Norval's 
birth.  She  became  only  a  half- 
frantic  mother  seeking  her  erring 
son;  an  earthly  counterpart  of  the 
Good  Shepherd  seeking  the  lost 
lamb.  She  turned  away  from  the 
men  and  hurried  toward  the  village. 
As  she  entered  the  town  people 
stopped  and  stared,  surprised  at  the 


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WHEN    GRACE   WAS   GIVEN 


spectacle  of  a  fleshy,  dishevelled 
woman,  alternately  walking  rapidly 
and  breaking  into  a  staggering  run. 
The  street  ended  abruptly  in  one 
that  ran  at  right  angles,  and  she 
paused  irresolutely  and  looked 
about  her.  A  man  pushed  past  her, 
and  she  caught  his  arm  and  in- 
quired breathlessly  where  she  could 
find  the  constable.  "Up  at  that  big 
house,"  he  said,  staring  at  her  cu- 
riously, and  then  hurried  on  to  es- 
cape the  rain  which  had  commenced 
to  fall. 

She  hastened  to  the  house  desig- 
nated, but  the  constable  was  not  at 
home, — she  could  find  him  down  at 
the  lockup,  "Where  those  people 
are,"  the  girl  who  answered  her 
knock  said,  pointing  indefinitely 
down  the  street.  At  the  lockup  1 
With  increased  trepidation  she  has- 
tened away.  On  the  porch  of  a 
house  close  to  the  street  was  a 
crowd  of  young  people.  She  thought 
that  must  be  the  place,  and  did  not 
discover  her  mistake  until  she  was 
on  the  porch  and  through  the  open 
door  saw  the  interior  of  a  dwelling. 
She  turned  away  with  an  exclamation 
of  dismay,  and  the  young  people  tit- 
tered as  she  hurried  out  again  into 
the  rain. 

She  had  almost  passed  her  hus- 
band and  June  Hull  before  they 
hailed  her.    From  the  seat  between 


them  Nerval  leered  at  her  drunk- 
enly.  June  helped  her  awkwardly 
to  the  back  seat  of  the  wagon,  and 
they  sought  shelter  from  the  storm 
in  an  open  barn,  where  the  hours 
dragged  by  in  miserable  silence. 

The  evening  services  were  com- 
mencing as  they  drove  past  the 
grove.  Around  the  gate  a  growing 
crowd  of  people  were  gathered, 
moving  slowly  toward  the  point 
where  the  flaring  oil  lamps  cast  a 
flickering  light  on  the  platform  and 
surrounding  seats.  Three  minis- 
ters, with  locked  arms,  moved 
through  the  crowd,  singing  with  as- 
sertive fervor: 

"Oh,  how  I  love  Jesus! 
Oh,  how  I  love  Jesus! 
Because  he  first  loved  me." 

The  air  was  cool  after  the  storm, 
and  the  bushes  and  grass  along 
the  roadside  had  taken  on  a  new 
freshness.  Nerval  had  sunk  into 
a  heavy  sleep,  leaning  against 
his  mother.  She  took  the  shawl 
from  her  shoulders  and  wrapped  it 
around  him.  Then,  with  the  diffi- 
dence of  an  unaccustomed  act,  she 
drew  his  head  over  upon  her 
breast,  smootliied  his  curls  back,  and, 
bending,  kissed  his  cheek  and  his 
lips.  When  she  raised  her  head 
his  face  ^^^s  wet  with  her 
tears. 


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Deepest  Marble  Quarry  in  the  World,  West  Rutland,  Vt. 


The  Carrara  of  America 

By  Orin  Edson  Crooker. 


IT  is  said  that  upwards  of  sixty 
years  ago  a  certain  farmer  grew 
tired  of  trying  to  earn  a  living 
from  the  stony  soil  of  Vermont 
and  in  sheer  desperation  bartered  his 
hill  farm  for  an  old  horse  with  which 
to  make  his  escape  from  the  Green 
Mountain  state.  Had  he  only  re- 
mained and  delved  deeper  below  the 
surface,  he  would  have  found  untold 
wealth,  for  beneath  this  self-same  hill 
farm,  which  is  to-day  so  barren  of 
pasturage  and  so  poverty  stricken  in 
appearance  as  to  make  the  incident 
mentioned  seem  entirely  credible, 
exist  the  most  extensive  and  valuable 
marble  quarries  in  the  world.  From 
within  the  limits  of  this  small  plot  of 


ground  at  West  Rutland  has  come  a 
large  share  of  the  marble  which  is 
now  in  use  throughout  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land. 

Rutland  County,  with  its  extensive 
quarries  at  West  Rutland,  Proctor, 
Brandon,  Pittsford,  and  other  points, 
is  to  America  what  Carrara  is  to  Italy. 
A  few  years  ago,  when  the  marble  in- 
dustry of  Vermont  was  first  coming 
into  prominence,  it  was  not  generally 
believed  that  any  marbles  would  ever 
be  quarried  equal  to  those  of  the  old 
world,  especially  those  of  Italy  and 
Greece.  But  as  the  deposits  in  Ver- 
mont have  been  more  thoroughly  in- 
vestigated it  has  been  found  that  the 
stone  in  many  places  is  fully  equal,  if 

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THE   CARRARA   OF   AMERICA 


not  superior,  to  the  famous  marbles 
of  the  ancients.  There  are  varieties 
that  strongly  resemble  the  Pentelic 
marble  of  which  the  Parthenon,  the 
Hipprodronie,  and  other  edifices  of 
ancient  Athens  were  built,  and  in 
which   Phidias,   Praxiteles,  and  other 


Old  Sheldon  Quarry,  Rutland 

Greek  sculptors  executed  their  prin- 
cipal works.  The  translucent,  white 
marbles  of  Italy,  a  few  specimens  of 
which  are  found  in  the  sacred  altars 
of  Venice,  and  from  which  Michael 
Angelo's  finest  statues  were  wrought, 
are  equalled  by  some  of  the  statuary 
marbles  of  Vermont.     A  counterpart 


of  the  gra>nsh-white   marble  of   Mt. 
Hymettus    in    Greece    has   also   been 
found.     Black,  blue,  red  and  greenish 
marbles, — including   mottled,   striped, 
wavy    and    variegated    varieties,    are 
also  quarried  either  in  Rutland  Coun- 
ty or  at  other  points  on  the  same  gen- 
eral vein  of   stone   which 
threads    the    state    from 
north  to  south. 

The  present  magnitude 
of  the  marble  industry  in 
X'emiont  is  only  of  com- 
paratively   recent    date, 
although      it     has      been 
known    for   over   a   hun- 
dred years  that  there  were 
extensive  deposits  of  this 
stone     within    the    state. 
Nathaniel    Chipman,    one 
of  X'ermont's  early  jurists, 
writing   from   Rutland  to 
a  friend  in  New  York  in 
1792,    said:     ''There    are 
also    in    this    part    of   the 
country    numerous    quar- 
ries  of   marble,   some   of 
them  of  superior  quality." 
A  little  surface  marble  was 
used  for  tombstones  prior 
to    1800,  and    as  early  as 
1835    the    deposits    were 
systematically   worked    in 
a  small  way.     But  it  was 
not   until    Redfield    Proc- 
tor,   now    United    States 
Senator     from    Vermont, 
became  identified  with  the  industry  a 
little  before  1870  that  the  present  ex- 
tensive development  of  the  marble  de- 
posits   may    be    said    to    have    com- 
menced.    And   to   realize   how    small 
an  industry  it  was  even  then,  we  have 
only  to  remember  that  in   1870  Ver- 
mont was  credited  with  marble  sale.- 


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THE    CARRARA    OF    AMERICA 


of  but  $130,000.  At  the  present  day 
an  annual  business  of  $2,500,000  is 
done  by  one  company  alone, — to  say 
nothing  of  the  many  smaller  compan- 
ies which  operate  in  the  marble  belt. 

The  magnitude  of  most  industries 
may  be  roughly  judged  by  .a  view  of 
its  shops  and  buildings.  Not  so  with 
the  marble  industry.  One  must  stand 
at  the  edge  of  the  quarry  and  peer 
down  into  the  yawning  chasm  where 
the  rock  is  quarried  in  order  to  fully 
appreciate  the  gigantic  scale  upon 
which  the  business  is  conducted.  At 
West  Rutland,  where  the  most  exten- 
sive quarries  are  situated,  there  is  a 
hole  in  the  ground  that  fairly  staggers 
one,  when,  for  the  first  time,  one 
grasps  the  slender  iron  railing  that 
extends  about  its  Q(]gQ  and  peers  down 


into  the  depths  below.  It  may  be 
briefly  described  as  a  cleft  in  the  earth 
a  third  of  a  mile  long  and  three  hun- 
dred feet  deep.  In  reality,  however, 
one  is  gazing  at  several  quarries  sit- 
uated on  the  same  vein  of  marble  and 
separated  one  from  the  other  by 
massive  piers  of  rock  which  seemingly 
hold  the  jutting  hillside  from  toppling 
over  into  the  chasm  below. 

A  first  imj)ression  of  these  great 
quarries  will  last  a  lifetime.  To  the 
fertile  imagination  the  "bottomless 
pit''  is  at  once  suggested.  Standing 
on  the  very  verge  one  peers  down 
through  the  steam  and  smoke,  trying 
to  adjust  the  eyes  to  the  proper  focus. 
A  constant  rattle  and  hum  comes  up, 
giving  some  indication  of  the  intense 
activity  of  those  at  work  below.     Men 


A  New  Quarry  at  Proctor 


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SUTHEPLAND    FALLS    QlJARRY 


look  like  ants  at  that  depth;  the  en- 
gines seem  mere  playthings ;  while  the 
great  cables  and  chains  which  have  to 
do  with  the  machinery  seem  like 
spider-webs. 

But  to  gather  some  idea  of  the  real 
depth  of  these  quarries  you  must  de- 
scend into  them  by  means  of  the  slen- 


der stairways  which  cling  like  vines 
to  the  quarry  wall,  and  which  zig-zag 
back  and  forth  until  the  bottom  is 
reached.  It  is  quite  comparable  to 
making  a  descent  from  the  top  of  one 
of  New  York's  highest  office  buildings 
by  means  of  the  fire-escape.  Of 
course,  a  clear  head  is  necessary,  but 


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The  Marble  Yard,  Rutund 


even  to  the  iinaccustoiTied  the  stair- 
ways seem  to  swin^  and  ^ive  with  the 
weight,  and  you  cannot  help  wonder- 
ing what  would  happen  if  the  stair- 
way should  give  way,  or  if  you  should 
stumble,  or  if  any  of  the  numerous 
possible  things  should  come  to  pass. 
But  at  last  after  many  steps  you 
reach  the  bottom  and  look  up  half 
doubtingly  at  the  narrow  strip  of  blue 
sky  overhead  and  the  slender  stairway 
clinging  so  closely  to  the  rocky  wall. 
Is  it  possible  that  you  have  come  down 
tliat  thread-like  ladder! 

Marble  is  not  blasted  out  of  its  posi- 
tion, as  many  may  suppose.  It  is  too 
valuable  to  be  shattered.  For  this 
reason  cutting  is  resorted  to,  and  the 
stone  is  freed  from  its  position  in  huge 
rectangular  blocks  weighing  many 
tons.  It  is  this  method  of  cutting 
which  gives  the  quarry  walls  such  d 
peculiar  appearance;  for  the  rock  has 
been  taken  out  layer  upon  layer  and 

102 


the  marks  of  the  cutting  or  channeling 
machine  are  left  on  the  wall  to  tell  the 
tale.  Years  ago  in  Vermont  the  stone 
was  quarried  by  hand,  as  is  the  case  in 
Italy  and  Greece  to-day.  But  this 
method  was  too  slow  for  Americans. 
Hence  an  inventive  genius  gave  the 
world  the  stone  channeling  machine, 
and  to-day  by  means  of  it  a  single 
skilled  operator  is  able  to  do  the  work 
formerly  requiring  from  fifty  to  on'j 
hundred  men. 

These  channeling  machines  run 
back  and  forth  on  rails,  and  the  drill;-) 
with  which  they  are  equipped  are 
driven  with  powerful  force  downward 
into  the  stone,  cutting  a  slit  about  an 
inch  wide  and  to  any  desired  depth  up 
to  ten  feet.  It  is  slow  work,  depend- 
ing much  on  the  grade  of  marble.  In 
some  cases  a  cut  twenty  feet  long  and 
eight  feet  deep  will  require  from 
twenty  to  twenty-four  hours  constant 
work.     When  a  perpendicular  cut  has 


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Travelling  Crane,  Proctor  Marble  Yard 


been  made  to  the  required  depth,  steel 
drills,  operated  either  by  steam  or  elec- 
tricity, are  used  to  bore  in  from  the 
side  in  a  horizontal  direction.  Holes 
are  bored  from  six  to  eight  inches 
apart  and  along  ihis  line  the  marble  is 
detached  from  its  bed  by  means  of 
wedges.  The  block  thus  loosened  is 
raised  to  the  surface  of  the  ground  by 
huge  derricks,  after  which  it  goes  to 
the  mill  to  be  sawed  into  slabs. 

This,  too,  is  an  interesting  opera- 
tion, although  the  principle  of  it  dates 
back  to  the  days  of  the  ancients.  The 
present  age  has  improved  upon  the 
method  in  vogue  two  thousand  years 
ago  only  through  the  substitution  of 
machine  for  hand  power.  Sand,  run- 
ning water,  and  a  saw  made  of  soft 
iron,  but  without  teeth,  are  necessary 
in  this  process.  The  rough  block  of 
marble  is  placed  in  position  under  a 
set  of  saws,  which  are  so  adjusted 


that  the  whole  stone  is  cut  up  at  one 
time  into  slabs  and  blocks  of  varying 
thickness.  A  powerful  machine  moves 
these  saws  back  and  forth  against  the 
stone,  while  a  stream  of  water,  con- 
taining sand  in  suspension,  pours  con- 
stantly over  it.  The  sharp  edges  of 
the  sand  cut  the  soft  stone  as  the  strip 
of  iron  works  the  small  pieces  of  sili- 
con back  and  forth  against  the  marble. 
It  is  also  a  slow  process,  requiring 
sometimes  from  twenty  to  thirty  hours 
to  saw  through  a  single  block  five  feet 
thick.  Thousands  of  car  loads  of 
sand  are  used  annually  for  this  pur- 
pose in  the  mills  at  Proctor,  and  the 
supply  of  this  material  is  one  of  con- 
si'lerable  importance.  Nature,  how- 
ever, has  been  kind  and  has  provided 
an  extensive  sand  deposit  some  miles 
east  of  the  village.  But  a  mountain 
lies  between!  Man's  ingenuity  has 
conquered    this    difficulty,    and    the 


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Loading  a  Twelve-Ton  Block,  Proctor 


sand  is  carried  oirr  the  mountain  in  a 
series  of  huge  iron  buckets  attached 
to  an  endless  cable.  These  go  and 
come,  empty  and  laden,  all  day  long 
in  a  steady,  mechanical  way,  which  is 
interesting  and  fascinating  to  l)ehold. 
From  the  mill  the  slabs  and  blocks 
go  to  the  polishers,  where  two  or  three 
different  processes  are  necessary  to 
give  them  a  smooth  and  even  polish. 
They  are  then  taken  in  hand  by  the 
workmen,  w^ho  shape  them  according 
to  the  specifications  of  the  buyer,  per- 
haps into  tombstones,  perliaps  into 
slabs  for  interior  decoration,  or  plum- 
ber's purposes,  or  for  the  thousand 
and  one  other  uses  for  which  marble 
is  adapted.  There  is  no  department 
of  this  vast  industry  more  absorbing 
to  the    sightseer   than    the    immense 

104 


workshop  at  Proctor  where  many 
hundreds  of  monuments  and  orna- 
mental pieces  are  to  be  seeii  in  all 
stages  of  shaping.  In  this  great  build- 
ing is  found  the  most  highly  skilled 
labor  of  the  marble  business, — men 
who  fashion  the  stone  blocks  into  a 
multitude  of  fanciful  designs.  Pneu- 
matic chisels  enable  the  expert  opera- 
tor to  carve  the  solid  stone  into  shape 
with  apparently  as  much  ease  as  the 
artist  moulds  his  clay.  The  finer  detail 
work  is  done  with  the  ordinary  chisel 
and  mallet.  In  this  sculptural  work 
the  lad  of  sixteen  labors  side  by  side 
with  the  patriarch  of  seventy.  It  is 
talent  that  counts  in  this  work  and  it 
is  not  easy  sometimes  to  say  which  is 
the  greater  adept,  the  boy  in  his  teens 
or  the  grey-haired  man. 


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50 

O 

3 


«05 

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Monument  and  Architectural  Work  Shops,  Proctor 
106 

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THE    CARRARA    OF    AMERICA 


107 


To  the  uninitiated  all  marble  is  val- 
uable. But  there  are  marbles — and 
marbles  I  Some  are  so  coarse  and 
^anular  as  to  be  of  little  use  for  any- 
thinjs:  but  building  purposes,  while 
some  are  so  fine  grained  as  to  crumble 
at  the  least  pressure.  These  last  are 
of  course  useless  for  commercial  pur- 
poses. Strange  as  it  may  seem,  Rut- 
land County  possesses  both  extremes. 
Toward  the  southern  limits  of  the 
county  the  marble  is  very  coarse,  but 
toward  the  north  it  grows  finer 
grained,  reaching  a  state  where  it  is 
very  friable.     Some    of  it    breaks  as 


Senator  Proctor's  Home  at  Proctor 

easily  as  lump  sugar,  and  a  broken 
piece  of  the  white  variety  looks  not 
unlike  this  substance. 

At  West  Rutland,  where  the  most 
extensive  quarrying  is  carried  on,  the 
marble  deposit  occurs  in  layers:  pure 
white,  mottled  green,  gray,  grayish - 
blue,  and  various  other  tints,  abutting 
one  against  the  other.  These  do  not 
shade  oflf  gradually  one  into  another, 
but  a  dark  layer  may  be  cemented  to 
a  white  layer  suitable  for  statuary  pur- 
poses, with  scarcely  a  trace  of  cement 
ing  matter  visible  between  them. 
These  layers  vary  in  thickness  from 


Hon.   Redfield  Proctor,  U.  S.  Senator 
FROM   Vermont 

a  few  inches  to  ten  feet  and  more. 
Geologists  tell  us  that  marble  is  simply 
limestone  which  has  been  subjected  to 
heat  and  pressure,  and  that  the  color- 
ing which  gives  such  beautiful  effects, 
is,  for  the  most  part,  due  to  carbo- 
naceous matter  derived  from  the  re- 
mains of  crinoids,  corals,  and  mol- 
lusks  which  lived  and  died  long  ages 
ago,  at  a  time  when  these  beds  of  lime- 
stone were  in  process  of  formation. 
In  the  case  of  the  white  statuary  mar 


Fletcher  D.  Proctor 

president   VERMONT   MARBLE  CO. 


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Marble  Ready  ro  Ship,  at  Proctor 


blc  the  heat  has  been  siiflFicient  to  ob- 
Hterate  the  fossils  which  the  hniestonc 
formerly  contained. 

The  man  who  has  done  most  of  all 
to  develop  the  marble  belt  of  the  Green 
Mountains,  is,  as  has  already  been  in- 
timated, Senator  Redfield  Proctor. 
Ile^C^innin^  a  little  over  thirty  years 
a^o  with  the  Sutherland  Falls  quarry, 
at  what  is  now  Proctor,  he  has  system- 
atized the  industry  and  in  great  meas- 
ure brought  it  to  its  present  magni- 
tude. He  has  combined  most  of  the 
many  companies  which  formerly  occu- 
pied the  field  into  one,  which  has  some- 
times been  called  the  "Marble  Trust." 
lie  himself  has  been  termed  the  "Mar- 
ble King."  Political  matters  now 
claim  Senator  Proctor's  entire  atten- 
108 


tion,  and  his  place  in  the  business  is 
taken  by  his  son,  Fletcher  D.  Proctor, 
a  man  whom  many  expect  some  day 
to  be  (lovernor  of  the  Green  Mountain 
state. 

The  people  of  the  state  of  Vermont 
have  never  understood,  and  in  a  de- 
gree do  not  understand  even  to-day, 
the  great  wealth  that  lies  hidden  be- 
neath its  rugged  surface.  It  possesses 
a  greater  variety  of  beautiful  marbles 
than  any  other  country  in  the  world, 
but  as  yet  very  little  has  been  done  to 
develop  those  most  suitable  for  orna- 
mental work.  So  far  the  principal  at- 
tention has  been  given  to  those  which 
may  be  utilized  for  monumental  and 
building  purposes.  Wealthy  men 
now  put  into  private  residences  more 


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The   CARRARA   OF   AMERICA  109 


marble  than  was  quarried  annually  in 
the  whole  state  of  Vermont  fifty  years 
ago,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the 
next  few  generations  will  constitute 
what  may  some  day  be  termed  "a 
marble  age."  Vermont's  supply  of 
this  stone  is  probably  inexhaustible, 
and  the  next  half  century  will  see  a 
great  increase  in  the  amount  of 
marble  quarried,  for  even  with  the 
deei>est  and  largest  quarries  in  the 
world  in  full  operation  the  industry 
in  this  Carrara  of  America  is  yet  in 
its  infancy. 


Copyright,  1902,  by  Hoffman  &  Proclazka 

The  Finished  Product 
(gen.  butterfield's  monument  at  west  point; 


O 


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Verses  by  Co^a  PAXTonHuMGERrof?o- 

Desi$r?jBP)?oto$rApf? 
By  fAMriiERoQERs  White- 

I  dAre/?ot  clain7 
0(76  lin/jC  "frorr?  out  i^Q 
n^ystic  cfeir? 
Of  rr\dx\y  ddy^  to  con7e. 

Tbe  p^6tw2^n?ij7e. 
Tor  h^l7t  onvror)^, 

Down  ita  diiT?  Aisles  n?y 

£;/eed§^?Ave5of?e, 

The  c^ie^t^is  ofdi^i>^oqQ  by. 

7176  preser7t',§  n?ii7e. 
,   I'll  iraly  ss^y 
TiSdM  I  diSkjth'is 
_  av/eet  to^Ay, 


110 


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The  New  Hampshire  Constitution 


By  Frederick  A.  Wood 


THE  State  constitutions, 
says  Mr.  Bryce,  "are  a 
mine  of  instruction  for  the 
natural  history  of  demo- 
cratic communities."  But  richer 
than  the  constitutions  themselves 
are  their  history,  the  discussions 
that  preceded  their  adoption  or  the 
adoption  of  separate  amendments, 
and  in  some  cases  the  reasons  why 
proposed  amendments  or  whole 
drafts  of  such  instruments  have  heen 
rejected  by  the  people.  In  short, 
the  constitutional  history  of  a  State 
is  a  lesson  in  democratic  tendencies 
of  unsurpassable  interest  and  profit 
to  the  student  of  politics.  And  this 
is  particularly  true  of  one  of  the 
older  States,  whether  it  has  had 
marked  growth  in  population  and 
industrial  activity,  making  for  radi- 
cal changes  in  social  life  and  politi- 
cal structure,  or  a  normal  and  com- 
paratively slow  development  since 
the  days  of  primitive  and  almost 
exclusively  agricultural  conditions. 
In  the  one  case  democracy  is  seen 
in  the  glow  of  intense  heat  and  a 
motion  so  active  that  rapid  and  per- 
haps radical  changes  in  institutions 
are  possible,  while  in  the  other  the 
same  forces,  working  less  violently, 
exhibit  less  noticeable  though  fully 
as  significant  results. 

In  December,  1902,  a  convention 
at  Concord  formulated  ten  amend- 
ments to  the  constitution  of  New 
Hampshire.     Four    of    these    were 


adopted  in  March,  1903,  through 
the  required  two-thirds  vote ;  the 
other  six  were  rejected.  The  con- 
stitutional history  of  New  Hamp- 
shire therefore  probably  is  closed 
for  some  years  and  can  be  con- 
veniently reviewed  at  this  time.  It 
is  the  history  of  one  of  the  original 
States,  from  which  the  rush  of  mod- 
ern life  has  by  no  means  been  ab- 
sent, but  which  has  remained  peo- 
pled in  large  part  by  the  ancient 
stock  and  hence  aflPords  a  fair  illus- 
tration of  constitutional  progress  in 
a  conservative  American  Common- 
wealth. We  shall  see  as  the  main 
characteristics  of  that  history  a  dis- 
position of  the  people  to  be  exceed- 
ingly particular  about  the  nature  of 
their  organic  law,  and  when  it  is 
once  adopted  a  great  reluctance  to 
introduce  modifications,  especially 
such  as  aim  at  the  abandonment  of 
religious  discriminations  and  of  the 
formal  connection  of  church  and 
state.  But  religion  did  not  play  an 
important  part  in  the  first  attempts 
at  constitution  making.  It  was  not 
mentioned  in  the  instrument  which 
was  adopted  on  January  5,  1776,  the 
first  dc  novo  constitution  of  any  of  the 
colonics. 

New  Hampshire  had  nothing  but 
its  statutes  and  the  King's  commis- 
sion to  the  Governor  to  build  upon 
when  it  formulated  this  constitu- 
tion, which  was  meant  to  serve  a 
temporary  purpose  and  did  not  con- 


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TH6   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


template  independence.  The  Pro- 
vincial Congress,  sitting  at  Exeter 
and  acting  upon  the  advice  of  the 
Continental  Congress,  had  called 
upon  the  people  to  elect  delegates  to 
a  convention  which  should  provide 
a  form  of  government  for  the  col- 
ony. This  convention  met  in  De- 
cember, 1775,  and  adopted  the  in- 
strument, which  contained  only 
about  1,000  words,  one-third  of 
which  were  devoted  to  an  explana- 
tion of  the  attitude  of  the  colony  in 
resisting  Great  Britain.  The  con- 
stitution, which  was  not  submitted 
to  the  people,  merely  vested  unlim- 
ited authority  in  the  convention, 
which  was  to  elect  from  its  own 
members  an  upper  branch  of  Coun- 
cillors, at  whose  head  should  be  a 
President.  It  made  no  provision  for 
executive  authority  while  the  conven- 
tion was  not  in  session,  but  this  was 
delegated  by  general  consent  to  the 
Committee  of  Safety.  Brief  and  inad- 
equate as  this  constitution  was,  since 
it  concentrated  all  power  in  a  legisla- 
tive body,  it  answered.  It  carried  the 
infant  State  through  the  war,  and  not 
until  1784  did  it  give  way  to  a  more 
perfect  code  of  law. 

It  was  no  easy  task  to  secure  the 
approval  of  the  people  for  a  new 
constitution.  The  work  of  one  con- 
vention, which  met  in  1778  and 
again  in  1779,  was  rejected,  and  a 
second,  which  began  its  sessions  in 
June  of  1 78 1,  came  together  seven 
times  and  completed  its  work  on 
Octaber  31,  1783,  had  two  of  its 
drafts  refused  before  the  third  went 
into  effect  in  1784.  The  instrument 
sent  out  in  1779  was  mainly  a  mod- 
est elaboration  of  the  temporary 
constitution ;     it     provided     for     an 


executive,  but  retained  nearly  all 
powers  in  the  legislature  and  pro- 
posed a  religious  test  for  voters. 
One  of  the  most  prominent  objec- 
tions to  the  first  draft  of  the  con- 
vention of  1 781  was  the  provision 
for  a  lower  house  having  so  small  a 
membership  as  fifty,  the  representa- 
tives to  which  were  to  be  chosen  by 
county  conventions.  This  plan 
plainly  was  too  undemocratic  to  suit 
the  people,  as  was  the  requirement 
that  voters  should  have  a  freehold 
estate  of  £  100.  It  was,  however,  a 
thoroughgoing  attempt  at  revision. 
In  the  draft  which  was  finally  ac- 
cepted the  town  system  of  rei)resenta- 
tion  was  adopted,  and  it  has  endured 
continuously  ever  since.  That  sys- 
tem in  1784  gave  to  every  town  hav- 
ing 150  rateable  polls  one  represent- 
ative and  an  additional  representa- 
tive for  every  300  polls  above  that 
number,  while  towns  having  less 
than  150  polls  were  allowed  to  unite 
in  voting  for  a  member.  Members 
of  the  House  were  each  required  to 
have  an  estate  of  £100,  one-half  of 
which  was  to  be  a  freehold,  and  they 
were  to  be  Protestants.  Similarly 
the  twelve  members  of  the  Senate 
were  each  obliged  to  be  the  owners 
of  £200  in  real  estate  and  to  be  Pro- 
testants. The  title  of  the  chief  ex- 
ecutive was  President,  and  he,  be- 
sides possessing  other  qualifications, 
must  be  of  the  Protestant  religion 
and  have  an  estate  of  the  value  of 
£500,  one-half  of  which  was  a  free- 
hold within  the  State.  A  Council 
was  to  consist  of  two  members  of 
the  Senate  and  three  of  the  House, 
elected  by  joint  ballot.  The  Secre- 
tary of  State,  Treasurer  and  Com- 
missary-General   also    were    to    be 


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THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


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elected  by  joint  ballot  of  the  two 
branches.  Judicial  officers,  ap- 
pointed by  the  President  and  Coun- 
cil, were  to  hold  their  places  during 
good  behavior,  but  could  be  re- 
moved by  action  of  both  houses. 
The  suffrage  qualifications  were  the 
male  sex,  the  attainment  of  twenty- 
one  years  of  age  and  the  payment 
of  a  poll-tax.  Thus  at  the  begin- 
ning of  its  real  constitutional  his- 
tory New  Hampshire  refused  to  es- 
tablish a  property  qualification.  The 
Bill  of  Rights  of  this  document  was 
substantially  that  of  to-day  and  in- 
cluded, all  told,  thirty-eight  sections, 
of  which,  by  reason  of  its  subse- 
quent history,  the  sixth  is  the  most 
interesting.    It  read  as  follows : 

"As  morality  and  piety,  rightly 
f^rounded  on  evangelical  principles,  will 
give  the  best  and  greatest  security  to  gov- 
en.inf  nt.  and  will  lay  in  the  hearts  of  men 
the  strongest  obligations  to  due  subjec- 
tion; anti  as  the  knowledge  of  these  is 
most  likely  to  be  propagated  through  a 
society  by  the  insiitiition  of  the  public 
worship  of  the  Deity,  and  of  public  in- 
struction in  morality  and  religion;  there- 
fore, to  promote  those  important  pur- 
poses, the  people  of  this  State  have  a 
right  to  impower,  and  do  hereby  fully 
impower  the  Legislature  to  authorize 
from  time  to  time  the  several  towns,  pa*-- 
ishes,  bodies-corporate,  or  religious  so- 
cieties within  this  State,  to  make  adequate 
provision  at  their  own  expense,  for  the 
support  and  maintenance  of  public  Protes- 
tant teachers  of  piety*  religion  and  moral- 
ity: 

^'Provided,  notwithstanding,  that  the  sev- 
eral towns,  parishes,  bodies-corporate,  or 
religious  societies,  shall  at  all  times  have 
the  exclusive  right  of  electing  their  own 
public  teachers,  and  of  contracting  with 
them  for  their  support  and  maintenance. 
And  no  person  of  any  one  particular  reli- 
gious sect  or  denomination,  shall  ever  be 
compelled  to  pay  towards  the  support  ol 


the  teacher  or  teachers  of  another  persua- 
sion, sect  or  denomination. 

"And  every  denomination  of  Christians 
demeaning  themselves  quietly,  and  as 
good  subjects  of  the  State,  shall  be  equally 
under  the  protection  of  the  law;  and  no 
subordination  of  any  one  sect  or  denomi- 
nation to  another  shall  ever  be  established 
by  law. 

"And  nothing  herein  fchall  be  understood 
to  aflFect  any  former  contracts  made  for 
the  support  of  the  ministry;  but  all  such 
contracts  shall  remain,  and  be  in  the  same 
stale  as  if  this  constitution  has  not  been 
made." 

The  draft  of  1784  was  far  from 
being  permanently  adapted  to  the 
needs  and  wishes  of  the  people  of 
New  Hampshire.  During  the  seven 
years  following  its  adoption  the 
Federal  constitution  had  gone  into 
effect  and  the  use  of  the  word 
"President"  as  the  title  of  the  State 
executive  had  become  inconvenient. 
Numerous  minor  defects,  such  as 
the  requirement  that  the  President 
serve  as  the  presiding  officer  of  the 
Senate,  have  a  vote  like  an  ordinary 
Senatqr  and  a  deciding  vote  in  case 
of  a  tie,  also  had  been  revealed  by 
experience. 

The  convention  which  met  for  the 
first  time  in  August,  1791,  submitted 
no  less  than  seventy-two  amend- 
ments to  the  people  in  1792.  Of  this 
number  forty-six  were  adopted.  The 
rejection  of  so  large  a  number  re- 
sulted in  several  inconsistencies  in 
the  instrument  as  a  whole,  and  the 
convention  accordingly,  at  an  ad- 
journed meeting,  perfected  the  draft 
and  again  referred  it  to  the  people, 
who  now  accepted  its  provisions 
without  exception.  By  this  action 
the  people  of  New  Hampshire  gave 
to  their  organic  law  its  permanent 
form,  for  after  1792  no  change  was 


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THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


made  in  it  until  1852  and  no  consid- 
erable number  of  amendments  were 
adopted  until  1877. 

Of  the  amendments  made  by  the 
revision  of  1792  the  most  important 
was  that  by  which  the  veto  power 
was  given  to  the  executive,  who 
now  had  the  title  of  Governor.  A 
two-thirds  vote  of  each  house  could 
overcome  a  veto.  The  Governor  was 
relieved  from  attendance  upon  ses- 
sions of  the  Senate.  The  Council, 
instead  of  being  elected  by  the  Leg- 
islature, was  to  come  directly  from 
the  people.  The  mass  of  amend- 
ments referred  to  comparatively  un- 
important matters,  and  no  signifi- 
cant change  in  the  attitude  of  the 
voters  was  indicated  in  their  adop- 
tion, or  in  the  rejection  of  the  large 
number  of  suggested  amendments. 

In  one  particular,  however,  the 
work  of  the  convention  of  1791-1792 
and  the  action  of  the  people  is  of 
considerable  significance.  A  strong 
effort  was  made,  under  the  leader- 
ship of  William  Plum'er,  afterwards 
Governor  of  the  State,  to  secure  the 
elimination  from  the  Bill  of  Rights 
of  the  sixth  article.  The  reply  of  a 
majority  of  the  convention  was  the 
insertion  as  an  addendum  to  the 
article  of  a  provision  to  the  effect 
that  at  the  installation  of  a  new  min- 
ister in  a  town  citizens  should  have 
an  opportunity  to  record  their  dis- 
sent from  the  official  religion;  that 
the  same  privilege  should  be  given 
to  citizens  when  becoming  of  age, 
and  that  no  person  should  be  freed 
from  the  obligation  of  paying  taxes 
for  the  support  of  the  ministry  by 
changing  his  religion  at  other  times. 
These  provisions  were  designed  to 
strengthen  the  grasp  6f  the  estab- 


lished churches  on  dissenters  for 
their  support,  and  were,  of  course, 
strangely  inconsistent  with  that 
phrase  of  the  fifth  article  which  says 
that  no  one  shall  be  restrained  in 
the  exercise  of  his  religious  convic- 
tions. The  article  was  rejected,  as 
was  another  intended  to  abolish  the 
religious  test  for  officeholders.  The 
status  of  dissenters  under  a  statute 
remained  unchanged  until  1804, 
when  the  Freewill  Baptist  church 
was  recognized  by  the  Legislature. 
Later  Universalists  and  Methodists 
were  given  legal  standing. 

The  theological  quibbles  anent 
the  subject  of  church  membership 
are  amusing  enough  at  this  day. 
Counsel  in  one  case  in  court  con- 
tended that  the  defendant,  who 
claimed  to  be  a  Baptist,  could  not 
be  excused  from  paying  a  tax  be- 
cause he  did  not  prove  that  he  had 
been  dipped,  while  it  was  advanced 
in  response  that  he  was  not  a  Con- 
gregationalist  because  it  was  not 
proved  that  he  had  been  sprinkled. 
In  1819  all  the  practical  effects  of 
a  separation  of  church  and  state 
were  realized  through  the  pa'ssage 
of  the  Act  of  Toleration,  which  the 
more  extreme  defenders  of  ortho- 
doxy then  said  "abolished  the 
Bible."  But,  while  Massachusetts 
abandoned  in  1833  any  relation  be- 
tween itself  and  the  Congregational 
church  by  means  of  a  constitutional 
amendment.  New  Hampshire  still 
clings  to  a  formal  recognition  of  the 
relationship. 

If  the  people  of  New  Hampshire 
did  not  change  a  word  of  their  con- 
stitution for  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury, it  was  because  they  deliber- 
ately and  consciously  preferred  not 


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THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


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to  do  so.  Again  and  again  they 
voted  against  the  calling  of  another 
convention.  At  last,  in  1849,  ^^^ 
balloting  went  the  other  way,  two 
to  one,  and  a  convention  met  in 
1850.  In  the  following  year  a  num- 
ber of  amendments,  one  of  which 
proposed  the  popular  election  of 
judges,  were  sent  to  the  people,  only 
to  be  rejected  en  bloc.  The  conven- 
tion reassembled  later  in  the  year 
and  formulated  three  new  amend- 
ments, of  which  one  abolished  the 
religious  test  for  members  of  the 
Legislature  and  Governor,  another 
dispensed  with  the  property  qualifi- 
cation for  those  officials,  and  the 
third  provided  a  different  method 
for  amending  the  constitution.  The 
amendment  respecting  the  property 
qualification  was  ratified ;  the  others 
were  rejected. 

A  period  of  about  twenty-five  years 
elapsed  before  another  convention 
was  called.  Before  this  occurred, 
however,  on  two  occasions  the 
voters  had  recorded  their  approval 
of  an  effort  at  revision.  These  votes 
were  taken  in  i860  and  1864,  but  the 
majorities  for  a  convention  were  not 
large  and  the  Legislature,  probably 
fairly  interpreting  the  wishes  of  the 
people,  concluded  that  while  the 
war  was  in  progress  revision  would 
be  unwise.  But  in  1875  the  demand 
for  a  convention  was  overwhelming, 
and  accordingly  the  body  met  on 
December  6,  1876.  The  outcome  of 
its  deliberations  was  the  recom- 
mendation of  thirteen  amendments, 
of  which  the  more  important  were 
the  following:  biennial  sessions  of 
the  Legislature  and  the  election  of 
officers  for  terms  of  two  years;  an 
increase  in  the  number  of  Senators 


from  twelve  to  twenty-four;  State 
elections  in  November,  instead  of 
March;  a  prohibition  of  the  appro- 
priation of  money  raised  by  taxes 
for  the  benefit  of  sectarian  schools 
or  other  sectarian  institutions;  the 
elimination  of  the  word  "Protest- 
ant" from  the  sixth  section  of  the 
Bill  of  Rights ;  the  abandonment  of 
the  requirement  that  the  Governor, 
Senators  and  Representatives  be  of 
the  Protestant  religion;  a  prohibition 
of  legislative  authorization  to  towns 
and  cities  to  give  financial  assist- 
ance to  corporations;  a  prohibi- 
tion of  the  removal  of  officials  for 
political  reasons ;  the  distribution  of 
Representatives  on  the  old  town  sys- 
tem, with  the  requirement  of  600 
inhabitants  in  a  ward  of  a  city  or  in 
a  town  for  one  Representative  and 
1,800  additional  inhabitants  for  a 
second  Representative,  the  mean  in- 
creasing number  being  1,200  and 
towns  of  less  than  600  inhabitants 
being  permitted  to  unite  for  choos- 
ing a  Representative. 

The  voting  occurred  in  March, 
1877,  and  eleven  of  the  thirteen  pro- 
posals were  adopted,  including  all 
of  those  above  mentioned  except 
that  providing  for  the  elimination 
of  the  word  "Protestant"  from  the 
Bill  of  Rights  and  that  forbidding 
the  removal  of  officeholders  for 
political  reasons.  It  is  apparent  that 
this  revision  was  of  considerable 
importance.  It  was  directed  main- 
ly, however,  toward  a  reconstruction 
of  representation  in  the  Legislature, 
the  time  of  elections  and  the  terms 
of  State  officials.  Progress  in  the 
direction  of  complete  religious 
equality  was  marked  by  the  refusal 
of  the  people  any  longer  to  make  ad- 


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THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


herence  to  the  Protestant  religion  a 
test  for  service  as  Governor,  Sen- 
ator or  Representative.  But  the 
constitutional  requirement  in  this 
respect  for  many  years  had  not  been 
strictly  observed. 

The  revision  of  1877,  however,  did 
not  accomplish  its  main  purpose  of 
putting  the  election  and  status  of 
members  of  the  Legislature  on  a 
thoroughly  satisfactory  basis.  This 
defect  and  a  certain  interest  in  the 
liquor  question  and  the  sixth  article 
of  the  Bill  of  Rights  induced  the 
voters  in  1885  to  decide  by  a  slender 
majority  in  a  light  vote  to  attempt 
a  further  change.  A  convention  was 
held  in  the  early  part  of  1889  and 
seven  amendments,  to  the  following 
effect,  were  submitted  to  the  people : 
T.  To  change  the  time  of  meeting  of 
the  Legislature  from  June  to  Janu- 
ary and  to  change  the  beginning  of 
terms  of  office  to  correspond.  2.  To 
provide  fixed  salaries  for  members 
of  the  Legislature.  3.  To  fill  vacan- 
cies in  the  Senate  by  new  elections. 

4.  To  allow  the  Speaker  of  the 
House  to  act  as  Governor  when  va- 
cancies exist  in  the  offices  of  Gov- 
ernor and  President  of  the  Senate. 

5.  To  prohibit  the  manufacture  or 
sale  of  liquor.  6.  To  give  the  Bill  of 
Rights  a  non-sectarian  character. 
7.  To  change  the  method  of  repre- 
sentation of  the  small  or  "classed" 
towns.  All  these  amendments  but 
the  fifth  and  sixth  were  adopted  by 
receiving  the  required  two-thirds 
vote.  The  fifth  received  25,786  yeas 
and  30,976  nays,  while  the  sixth  had 
27,737  in  its  favor  and  20,048  against 
it.  This  vote  on  the  references  of 
the  Bill  of  Rights  to  religious  pro- 
clivities was  thought  at  the  time  to 


indicate  a  growing  liberality  in  New 
Hampshire. 

Twice  during  the  next  decade  the 
people  voted  against  calling  another 
convention,  but  in  1901  the  feeling 
had  become  widespread  that  an  ef- 
fort should  be  made  to  reduce  the 
size  of  the  lower  branch  of  the  Leg- 
islature. The  New  Hampshire 
House  has  a  larger  membership  than 
has  any  similar  body  in  the  United 
States,  but  under  the  rule  of  appor- 
tionment established  in  1877  it  will 
continue  to  g^ow  until  the  alterna- 
tives offered  the  people  are  to  reduce 
the  number  of  Representatives  or 
enlarge  the  State  House.  Most  of 
the  sensible  men  of  the  State  take 
the  attitude  that  not  only  is  an  en- 
largement of  the  State  House  not 
warranted  but  that  a  reduction  in 
the  size  of  the  lower  branch  would 
be  a  positive  gain  to  legislative  effi- 
ciency. To  accomplish  this  reduc- 
tion two  plans  have  been  widely  dis- 
cussed, one  providing  for  a  district 
system,  in  which  population  rather 
than  the  towns  would  be  the  basis 
of  representation,  the  other  continu- 
ing the  town  system,  with  the  re- 
quirement of  a  larger  number  of  in- 
habitants for  the  first  Representative 
and  a  larger  mean  increasing  num- 
ber for  additional  members. 

In  the  convention  which  met  in 
December,  1902,  these  two  plans 
were  thoroughly  debated,  with  the 
result  in  favor  of  the  historic  town 
system.  The  other  propositions  in 
which  unusual  interest  was  taken  at 
that  convention  were  trusts  and 
woman  suffrage.  It  was  admitted 
that  the  Legislature  already  had 
ample  authority  in  respect  to 
monopolies    and    the    restraint    of 


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THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


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trade  and  that  there  was  little 
probability  of  the  State  conferring 
the  elective  franchise  upon  women. 
But  the  sentiment  of  the  delegates 
was  general  that  a  subject  of  so 
great  importance  as  that  of  trusts 
should  have  constitutional  recogpii- 
tion,  while  as  to  woman  suffrage  a 
disposition  appeared  to  see  just)  how 
the  voters  looked  on  it. 

The  convention  sent  ten  amend- 
ments to  the  people,  as  follows: 
I.  Requiring  as  a  suffrage  qualifica- 
tion the  ability  to  read  the  English 
language  and  write.  2.  Requiring 
militia  officers  to  pass  examinations. 
3.  Depriving  the  Legislature  of  the 
right  to  elect  the  Commissary-Gen- 
eral. 4.  Empowering  the  Legisla- 
ture to  tax  franchises  and  inheri- 
tances. 5.  Increasing  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  police  courts.  6.  Substitut- 
ing in  the  Bill  of  Rights  the  word 
"Christian"  for  the  word  "evangeli- 
cal" before  the  word  "principles," 
striking  out  the  words  "towns"  and 
"Protestant"  and  making  another 
substitution  in  harmony  with  the 
idea  of  permitting  no  distinction  be- 
tween religious  sects  and  of  dis- 
solving all  formal  connection  be- 
tween church  and  stafe.  7.  Giving 
to  women  the  elective  franchise. 
8.  Giving  to  the  Legislature  full 
power  to  restrain  trusts.  9.  Making 
800  inhabitants  necessary  for  the 
election  of  one  Representative,  2,400 
for  two  Representatives  and  1,600 
for  each  additional  member,  with 
provision  for  a  town,  ward  or  place 
having  less  than  800  inhabitants 
sending  a  Representative  a  part  of 
the  time,  or  uniting  with  other  small 
towns,  wards  or  places  for  represen- 
tation.    10.    Giving  to  the  Legisla- 


ture the  right  to  divide  towns  and 
wards  into  voting  precincts. 

The  few  weeks  preceding  the  vot- 
ing on  March  10,  1903,  were  devoted 
to  a  very  active  campaign  in  behalf 
of  the  suffrage  amendment.  Liter- 
ature intended  to  show  the  wisdom 
of  the  change  was  widely  distributed 
and  perhaps  two  hundred  public 
meetings  were  held.  The  opponents 
of  this  proposition  contented  them- 
selves with  one  meeting  at  Concord, 
at  which  the  argument  against 
woman  suffrage  was  ably  presented. 
The  interest  in  this  question  prob- 
ably increased  materially  the  num- 
ber of  votes  cast,  yet  the  total  vote 
was  less  than  forty  per  cent  of  that 
given  in  the  presidential  election  of 
1900.  As  it  turned  out,  the  vote 
against  the  amendment  was  about 
five  to  three.  The  advocates  of  suf- 
frage, however,  found  grounds  for 
some  satisfaction  in  the  fact  that 
more  votes  were  cast  on  that  amend- 
ment than  on  any  other  but  one,  and 
in  the  distinctly  educational  nature 
of  their  campaign. 

Of  the  ten  amendments  proposed 
but  four  were  adopted — those  relat- 
ing to  the  educational  test  for  voters, 
the  examination  of  militia  officers, 
the  authorization  of  taxes  on  fran- 
chises and  inheritances,  and  the  sub- 
ject of  trusts.  The  first  was  given 
the  most  pronounced  endorsement 
of  all,  while  the  clause  referring  to 
taxes  had  the  largest  number  of  nega- 
tive votes  of  the  other  three.  The 
amendment  intended  to  place  all  de- 
nominations of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion on  the  same  footing  had  a  few 
more  votes  in  the  affirmative  than  in 
the  negative,  but  failed,  of  course, 
bec4V§^  %  two-thir4§  majority  was 


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THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


required.  Curiously  enough,  the 
subject  which  had  engaged  the  at- 
tention of  the  convention  to  a 
greater  extent  than  any  other — that 
of  the  apportionment  of  Representa- 
tives— did  not  come  prominently  to 
the  front  during  the  campaign,  and 
the  clause  itself  was  defeated,  al- 
though it  received  a  large  majority. 
The  explanation  probably  is  to  be 
found  in  the  opposition  of  two  ele- 
ments of  the  electorate,  one,  strong 
in  the  small  towns,  objecting  to  a 
diminution  in  the  number  of  Repre- 
sentatives, and  the  other  favoring 
the  substitution  of  the  district  for 
the  town  system.  This  matter  of 
representation  in  the  House  is  bound 
to  come  up  again  at  no  very  distant 
day,  and  when  it  does  the  district 
plan  will  be  stronger  by  reason  of  a 
continuance  for  a  few  years  longer 
of  the  town  system.  It  is  fair  to 
infer  that  many  of  the  most  sincere 
believers  in  a  smaller  House  thought 
the  shortest  cut  to  the  goal  of  the 
district  plan  was  by  the  rejection  of 
any  modification  of  the  antiquated 
town  system. 

What  now  may  we  learn  of  the 
natural  history  of  one  democratic 
community  from  this  bird's-eye 
glance  at  the  growth  of  the  New 
Hampshire  constitution?  Obvious- 
ly its  first  lesson  is  that  New  Hamp- 
shire is  an  exceedingly  conservative 
State.  The  constitution  adopted  in 
1783  has  endured  with  very  slight 
changes,  for  the  amendments  of 
1792  were  as  a  rule  in  form  rather 
than  in  substance.  The  conserva- 
tive character  of  the  people  is  ex- 
hibited most  strikingly  in  the  great 
number  of  times  when  the  voters 
deliberately  decided  at  the  polls  that 


they  did  not  wish  a  convention  to 
be  called  to  propose  amendments. 
Again,  whenever  a  convention  was 
voted,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  its 
work  was  scrutinized  with  the  ut- 
most care  and  in  a  spirit  of  aversion 
to  change.  The  people  constantly 
have  taken  the  position  that  an 
amendment  must  be  shown  to  be 
necessary  or  altogether  desirable 
before  it  was  entitled  to  ratification. 
Particularly  is  this  attitude  of  analy- 
sis and  criticism  shown  by  the  sub- 
mission of  amendments  on  the  un- 
derstanding that  the  convention 
itself  would  meet  again  to  learn  the 
popular  verdict.  The  first  strictly 
constitutional  convention  dissolved 
before  it  sent  its  draft  to  the  people. 
The  second,  however,  continued  in 
existence  until,  after  two  drafts  had 
been  rejected,  its  labors  were  at  last 
crowned  with  success  in  1783.  The 
third  convention  did  not  complete 
its  work  until  it  had  heard  from  the 
people  on  the  seventy-two  amend- 
ments it  had  recommended  and  until 
the  result  of  a  second  vote  was 
known.  When,  half  way  through 
the  nineteenth  century,  another  con- 
vention assembled,  it  encountered 
the  same  disposition  of  the  people  to 
pass  an  adverse  judgment,  and  it 
likewise  continued  its  life  while  all 
its  original  amendments  were  being 
voted  down,  and  until  it  had  offered 
three  new  ones,  but  one  of  which 
was  adopted. 

The  three  conventions  since  the 
Civil  War  have  followed  a  different 
policy,  regarding  their  work  as  done 
when  they  had  put  their  conclusions 
into  the  form  of  recommendations. 
On  the  whole  this  new  policy  has 
worked  well.     In  1877  all  but  two 


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out  of  the  thirteen  proposed  amend- 
ments were  accepted;  in  1889  five 
out  of  seven,  and  in  1903  four  out  of 
ten.  The  tendency  since  1877  to 
revert  to  a  more  critical  attitude  is 
easily  explicable.  The  revision  of  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago  came  in  re- 
sponse to  a  general  demand  for  the 
correction  of  certain  long-standing 
anachronisms.  The  current  of  prog- 
ress had  been  too  long  dammed  and 
an  overflow  was  inevitable.  Once 
the  most  glaring  defects  of  the 
constitution  had  been  remedied,  the 
old  aversion  to  accepting  changes 
reappeared,  but  the  conventions 
seem  to  have  met  a  fair  degree  of  suc- 
cess by  assuming  that  the  result  of 
each  reference  to  the  people  should 
be  decisive  for  some  years. 

With  this  conservatism  of  the 
New  Hampshire  electorate  is  closely 
linked  a  degree  of  illiberality  in  re- 
spect to  religion.  This  is  somewhat 
surprising,  since  the  colonial  tradi- 
tions of  the  province  were  the  other 
way.  When  New  Hampshire  in 
1641  was  united  to  Massachusetts 
the  latter  took  notice  of  the  prevail- 
ing liberality  in  the  towns  to  the 
north  of  the  Merrimac  by  exempt- 
ing them  and  their  representatives 
from  church-membership  tests.  New 
Hampshire,  however,  was  the  spirit- 
ual child  of  Massachusetts,  and  the 
strong  sway  of  the  clergy  was  even- 
tually established.  During  the  twen- 
ty years  following  the  close  of  the 
Revolution  the  power  of  the  "stand- 
ing order"  of  Congregationalism 
grew  steadily  stronger.  The  sixth 
article  of  the  Bill  of  Rights  was,  of 
course,  a  natural  product  of  the 
times;  it  expressed  existing  condi- 
tions and  sentiments  as  to  religion. 


The  authorization  of  towns  to  em- 
ploy ministers  and  support  them  by 
taxation  had  come  from  a  provincial 
statute  of  the  thirteenth  year  of 
Anne;  hence  it  was  nothing  new. 
But  when  a  law  of  1791  gave  to  the 
selectmen  the  power  theretofore  re- 
served to  the  voters,  abuses  arose. 
The  lot  of  dissenters,  whether 
they  affiirated  with  another  sect  or 
were  indifferent  to  religious  organi- 
zations, became  hard  indeed.  The 
assumption  of  the  selectmen  and  of 
the  courts,  which  were  controlled  by 
members  of  the  standing  order,  was 
that  every  one  owed  a  pecuniary 
duty  to  the  Congregational  church 
unless  membership  in  another  sect 
could  be  positively  established. 
Practically  that  portion  of  the  Bill 
of  Rights  which  asserted  that  "no 
person  of  any  one  particular  relig- 
ious sect  or  denomination  shall  ever 
be  compelled  to  pay  towards  the 
support  of  the  teacher  or  teachers 
of  another  persuasion,  sect  or  de- 
nomination," was  violated  and  an- 
nulled. 

This  condition  of  affairs  continued 
until  the  Act  of  Toleration  was 
passed  in  1819.  By  that  time  the 
pressure  of  domestic  interest  on  the 
part  of  other  sects  of  Protestantism 
and  the  example  of  other  States 
were  too  strong  to  be  resisted.  Yet 
the  act  of  1819  did  no  more  than  to 
put  by  statute  law  all  sects  of  Pro- 
testantism on  the  same  basis ;  it  did 
not  change  the  constitutional  posi- 
tion of  churches ;  it  did  not  abrogate 
the  right  of  the  Legislature  to  allow 
towns  to  pay  ministers  from  the 
taxes;  it  did  not  permit  Roman 
Catholics  to  hold  the  offices  of  Gov- 
ernor, Senator  and  Representative. 


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THE   NEW   HAMPSHIRE   CONSTITUTION 


The  reform  of  1819,  therefore,  was 
not  thoroughgoing.  Its  import  was 
the  overthrow  of  the  Congregational 
church  as  a  sort  of  State  church. 

A  step  in  the  direction  of  remov- 
ing all  religious  distinctions  was 
taken  when,  in  1877,  the  amendment 
requiring  adherence  to  Protestant- 
ism in  the  Governor,  Senators  and 
Representatives  was  adopted.  At 
the  same  time,  it  is  to  be  noted,  the 
people  voted  not  to  strike  out  the 
word  "Protestant"  from  the  Bill  of 
Rights.  Twice  since  1877  a  similar 
refusal  has  been  made,  and  in  the 
latest  instance  neither  the  number 
of  votes  nor  the  majority  in  favor  of 
elimination  was  as  large  as  that  of 
1889.  Taking  into  account  the  large 
number  of  voters  of  New  Hampshire 
who  are  members  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  church,  and  who  would 
seem  not  to  have  been  insistent  this 
year  that  the  discrimination  against 
them  should  be  removed,  it  appears 
plain  that  among  the  Protestant  ele- 
ment the  spirit  of  liberality  has  lost 
ground. 

The  decisive  vote  of  this  year  in 
favor  of  an  educational  qualification 
for  the  suffrage  may  be  interpreted 
as  a  symptom  of  the  reaction  against 
the  extreme  democracy  of  the  mid- 
dle period  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
This  reaction  is  perhaps  more  evi~ 
dent  in  the  attitude  of  Northern  sen- 
timent toward  Southern  disfran- 
chisement of  the  Negroes  than  any- 
where else,  although  it  is  probably 
fair  to  say  that  it  has  received  its 
strongest  impulse  from  the  acquisi- 
tion of  colonial  possessions  through 
the  war  with  Spain.  So  far  as  it  has 
taken  the  form  of  an  educational  test 
involving    no  more  than    ability  to 


read  and  write,  it  must  be  regarded 
as  a  vindication  of  sane  and  genuine 
democracy.  The  great  interest  taken 
by  the  New  Hampshire  voters  in 
this  subject  may  justly  be  regarded 
as  a  significant  incident  in  the  politi- 
cal development  of  the  Common- 
wealth. 

If  we  confine  our  attention  to  the 
more  salient  inferences  from  the 
constitutional  history  of  New 
Hampshire,  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the 
century  and  a  quarter  of  that  history 
has  shown  surprisingly  few  changes 
in  the  attitude  of  the  people  toward 
their  organic  law.  The  substitution 
of  biennial  for  annual  terms  of  State 
officials  may  be  said  to  be  due  to  a 
belief  that  the  business  of  the  State 
can  be  done  as  satisfactorily,  eco- 
nomically and  efficiently  with  two 
year  as  with  one  year  periods.  It  is 
difficult  to  see  how  democracy  has 
lost  by  this  change.  The  people  of 
New  Hampshire  have  the  same  con- 
fidence in  their  legislative,  executive 
and  judicial  branches  as  they  had  in 
the  eighteenth  century,  if  one  may 
judge  from  the  fact  that  no  essential 
departures  in  the  powers  and  posi- 
tions of  those  departments  have  oc- 
curred. There  has  been  no  marked 
disposition  to  limit  the  subjects  on 
which  the  Legislature  may  act;  the 
authority  of  the  Governor,  subject 
to  the  control  of  the  Council,  re- 
mains as  at  the  close  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century;  the  judiciary,  ap- 
pointed by  the  Governor  and  Coun- 
cil and  holding  tenure  by  good  be- 
havior, is  free  to  interpret  the  law 
in  the  light  of  reason  and  without 
deference  to  political  or  corporation 
influences. 

The  comparatively  brief  constitu- 


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121 


tion  which  was  thought  sufficient  for 
the  State  after  the  Revolution  still 
remains  an  instrument  containing 
fundamental  principles  and  a  frame- 
work of  government  rather  than  a 
code  of  administrative  and  private 
law.  In  a  word,  democracy  in  New 
Hampshire  has  retained  its  represent- 
ative character  and  has  not  moved 
noticeably  toward  the  theory  of  di- 
rect government  by  the  people  in 
the  form  of  detailed  commands  in 
the  organic  law  and  of  the  use  of 
the  initiative  and  referendum.  While 
thus  it  contrasts  markedly  with  the 
democracy  of  many  of  the  newer 
Commonwealths,  which  insist  upon 
having  as  direct  control  of  the  ad- 
ministration as  is  practicable,  it  ap- 
proaches more  closely  the  Revolu- 


tionary conception  of  government 
by  the  people.  This  sort  of  democ- 
racy perhaps  permits  the  real  reason 
of  the  State  to  be  reflected  in  legis- 
lation and  administration  quite  as 
successfully  as  does  the  attempt  of 
the  people  of  a  State  to  say  in  their 
constitution  just  what  shall  and 
what  shall  not  be  done.  On  the 
whole,  aside  from  the  religious  nar- 
rowness to  which  attention  has  been 
directed,  the  constitutional  history 
of  New  Hampshire  is  a  credit  to  the 
intelligence  of  the  people  and  an  ex- 
emplification of  sane  and  moderate 
democracy,  as  well  as  a  conspicuous 
illustration  of  dislike  for  more 
changes  than  are  imperatively  de- 
manded by  a  growing  industrial  pop- 
ulation. 


The  Webster  Curse 


By  Harriet  A.  Nash 


AUNT  JOEY  MITCHELL 
yielded  cape  and  hood  into 
L  the  hands  of  her  hostess 
and  tied  a  black  silk  apron 
over  her  delaine  dress  in  comfortable 
-preparation  for  a  long  afternoon 
visit.  She  had  drawn  her  knitting 
from  her  bag  and  settled  herself 
primly  in  a  straight-backed  chair  be- 
fore her  eyes  fell  upon  the  red  cradle 
in  the  corner. 

•*Well,  well  I  never  did,"  she  de- 
clared stooping  above  its  tiny  occu- 
pant. "Boy  is  it,  or  girl  ?  And  Mal- 
viny  up  around.  No,  I  never  heard  a 
word  about  it." 
Time  had  been  when  the  red  cradle 


occupied  a  central  position  in  the 
Webster  kitchen,  and  parent  or  grand- 
parent hung  in  deep  concern  above  it 
or  jogged  the  rocker  with  restless 
foot.  But  with  each  succeeding  occu- 
pant the  cradle  had  moved  farther  to 
one  side,  until  it  had  at  last  reached 
the  very  comer,  where  shielded  from 
drafts  and  undisturbed  by  superfluous 
attention,  a  red-faced  mite  of  humani- 
ty slumbered  peacefully  through  long 
hours  or  stared  contentedly  at  the 
ceiling. 

"Boy  did  you  say  and  named  for 
David?  Well,  now  I'm  sure  he'll 
take  it  most  kindly,"  exclaimed  Aunt 
Joey,  as  the  grandmother  did  the  hon- 


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THE   WEBSTER   CURSE 


ors  of  the  red  cradle,  while  the  youn^ 
mother  looked  on  with  a  pride  which 
had  not  grown  commonplace  through 
repetition. 

Aunt  Joey  went  back  to  her  seat 
with  a  troubled  look  upon  her  round 
face,  and  though  she  made  an  effort 
to  join  in  friendly  gossip  concerning 
family  and  neighbors,  it  was  plain 
her  thoughts  were  wandering. 

"It's  Hiram's  sixth,  ain't  it?"  she 
asked  in  a  mysterious  whisper  as  Mal- 
vina  left  the  room  for  a  mometit. 
Grandma  Webster  nodded  serenely  as 
she  dropped  the  thumb  of  nine-year- 
old  Joseph's  mitten.  Aunt  Joey  be- 
came silent,  while  her  face  took  on  a 
look  of  deep  concern.  Presently  she 
laid  down  her  knitting  to  count 
thoughtfully  upon  her  fingers.  "Ed- 
ward's got  four,  hasn't  he,  and 
Thomas  Jefferson  three?"  she  in- 
quired in  a  deeply  sympathetic  tone. 
Grandma  Webster  assented  politely. 
Her  grandchildren  were  the  pride  of 
her  heart,  but  this  afternoon  she 
wanted  to  ask  about  the  people  across 
the  valley.  Whether  Elder  Noon's 
donation  party  was  near  at  hand,  and 
how  Mrs.  Weston  White  took  her 
son's  second  marriage.  Then  there 
were  particulars  of  one  or  two  village 
deaths  which  she  had  not  heard,  and 
a  rumor  of  words  between  the  minis- 
ter and  the  school  teacher.  Alto- 
gether, Aunt  Joey  was  a  far  less  en- 
tertaining guest  than  usual,  as  she  sat 
casting  occasional  pitying  glances  in 
Malvina*s  direction  or  roused  from 
a  silent  inspection  of  the  red  cradle  to 
offer  some  abstract  remark  with  the 
unmistakable  air  of  "making  talk." 

The  five  older  children  came  tum- 
bling in  from  school  rosy  after  a  run 
through  the  keen  autumn  air.    Aunt 


Joey  produced  a  peppermint  from  her 
bag,  dividing  it  impartially  between 
the  two  youngest.  The  older  boys 
went  dutifully  about  their  evening 
chores  and  the  little  girls  ran  out  to 
the  oak-tree  to  gather  acorns.  The 
air  resounded  with  their  eager  chat- 
ter. Malvina  had  betaken  herself  to 
the  milk-room  to  cut  some  cheese  for 
an  early  tea.  Aunt  Joey  leaned 
nearer  to  her  sister-in-law.  "He's  the 
thirteenth,"  she  said  in  an  awe-struck 
tone.  Grandma  Webster's  look  of 
dawning  comprehension  changed  to 
one  of  utter  dismay. 

"For  the  dear  land  sake,  so  he  is," 
she  exclaimed  sinking  helplessly  back 
in  her  chair,  while  her  neglected  knit- 
ting fell  unheeded  into  the  eager  paws 
of  the  yellow  kitten. 

They  were  still  conversing  in  low 
tones  when  Malvina  returned  with 
the  cheese.  "What's  the  matter?"  in- 
quired the  young  woman  briskly  as  she 
sat  the  lighted  candle  on  the  high  man- 
tle and  turned  to  encounter  the  appre- 
hensive glances  of  the  other  two. 

"We  might's  well  break  it  t«  her," 
suggested  Aunt  Joey  feelingly.  "It's 
got  to  come  sooner  or  later.  I  won- 
der you  or  Cyrus  didn't  think  of  it 
before."  Malvina  stood  patiently  in 
the  candle-light  listening  to  Aunt 
Joey's  long  and  somewhat  rambling 
story  of  family  tradition  interspersed 
with  frequent  comments  or  corrections 
from  Grandma  Webster.  Then  she 
turned  to  the  cradle  and  lifted  the 
baby,  pressing  it  to  her  breast  with 
fond  caresses.  "It  isn't  true,"  she 
said  defiantly.  "My  precious  baby! 
Just  as  though  harm  could  come  to 
you  because  a  revengeful  old  gypsy 
cursed  your  family  years  before  your 
great-grandfather  was  bom.     I  don't 


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care  if  the  thirteenth  child  of  every 
generation  has  been  a  fool  or  a  vil- 
lain ever  since.  It's  a  silly  old  super- 
stition,  and  this  one  shan't  be." 

The  two  older  women  looked  at 
each  other. 

"He  hasn't  ever  seemed  just  right 
to  me,"  Grandma  Webster  acknowl- 
edged tearfully.  "A  child  of  healthy 
raind'd  never  lay  contented  and  peace- 
able so  long  to  a  time.  I  knew  there 
was  trouble  coming.  I've  dreamed  of 
walking  through  snow  three  nights  in 
succession.  But  I  never  once  thought 
of  this.    Dear,  dear." 

"It  was  Uncle  Eben  in  Grandsire's 
family,"  continued  Aunt  Joey  reminis- 
cently.  "They  called  him  an  inno- 
cent, which  sounded  better  than  fool, 
but  meant  the  same  thing.  And 
David  and  Prudence  in  father's  fam- 
ily was  twins.  They  was  both  feeble 
minded.  And  Cousin  Jotham's  Thom- 
as Henry  never  even  learned  to  talk, 
though  he  lived  to  thirty  years.  Oh, 
yes,  it's  always  proved  true,  though 
there's  this  to  comfort  us,  there's 
never  been  a  villain  yet." 

Malvina,  the  baby  still  in  her  arms, 
met  the  male  element  of  the  family  at 
the  outer  door.  Here  at  last  was 
strength  to  help  her  combat  the  super- 
stitious belief  of  two  old  women. 
But  to  her  consternation  even  shrewd 
hard-headed  Grandpa  Webster  re- 
called the  family  curse  with  strong 
conviction  in  its  efficacy,  while  her 
practical  husband,  instead  of  ridicul- 
ing the  whole  matter,  as  she  had  con- 
fidently expected,  sat  staring  into  the 
fire  with  dejected  face. 

"Of  course  it's  true,"  he  declared 
irritably  when  Malvina  drew  him 
aside  to  argue  the  question.  "And 
just  my  luck  at  that.    Why  couldn't 


it  been  one  of  Tom's  or  Ed's  children 
just  as  well." 

The  matter  was  thoroughly  dis- 
cussed at  supper,  Aunt  Joey  and 
Grandpa  Webster  vying  with  each 
other  in  recalling  family  history, 
while  the  children  listened  with  wide 
open  eyes. 

Within  a  week  it  was  whispered 
from  house  to  house  throughout 
Plainville  that  Hiram  Webster's 
youngest  child  was  foolish.  Old  set- 
tlers recalled  the  family  tradition  with 
emphatic  nods  and  brought  up  dead 
and  gone  Websters  to  verify  the 
same.  The  family  accepted  the  situ- 
ation, although  Grandma  Webster's 
pride  suffered  severely  and  the 
young  father  openly  bemoaned  the 
fate  that  had  made  his  youngest 
son  a  lifelong  burden.  The  red 
cradle  was  pushed  farther  into  the 
comer,  where  its  rosy  tenant  slum- 
bered undisturbed  for  hours  together. 
Malvina,  with  determined  rebellion 
against  fate,  refused  to  believe  an  J 
was  only  silenced  by  her  husband's 
curt  assurance  that  he  much  preferred 
being  parent  to  an  idiot  than  accept 
the  alternative  and  produce  the  first 
villain  the  Webster  family  had  known. 
Grandparent  and  neighbor  united  in 
the  opinion  that  the  child's  every  ten- 
dency was  towards  confirmation  of 
their  belief.  And  when  little  David, 
whose  brothers  and  sisters  had  been 
restless,  active  babies,  refrained  from 
walking  until  his  second  year  and  de- 
clined all  attempts  to  talk  until  his 
third,  there  could  no  longer  be  room 
for  doubt — save  in  his  mother's  heart. 
"Send  him  to  school?  Of  course 
not,"  declared  his  father  with  irrita- 
tion, when  the  boy  reached  the  age  of 
four  years.     "Of  all  things  let's  spare 


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THE   WEBSTER   CURSE 


the  world  another  educated  fool.  A 
clear  idiot  is  bad  enough;  but  a  half 
and  half's  worse  yet." 

So  David  played  contentedly  among 
the  calves  and  chickens,  talking  to 
them  in  a  fond  language  of  his  own, 
and  much  preferring  them  to  other 
playmates.  Sometimes  Malvina  found 
him  lying  upon  the  grass  and  gazing 
up  into  the  blue  sky  with  the  same 
wondering  look  the  baby  eyes  had 
fixed  upon  the  ceiling.  But  when  she 
questioned  eagerly,  he  shook  his  head. 
"Just  finkinV'  he  declared,  with  the 
brevity  which  characterized  all  his  at- 
tempts at  conversation.  Reluctantly, 
Malvina  at  last  relinquished  all  at- 
tempts to  make  him  seem  like  other 
children.  There  was  a  difference,  she 
was  forced  to  admit,  as  he  sat  com- 
fortably eating  his  bread  and  milk  in 
silence,  while  his  brothers  and  sisters 
filled  the  old  kitchen  with  their  chat- 
ter; or,  crowded  from  their  games 
partly  by  natural  inclination,  but  more 
from  the  repeated  assurance  that  he 
was  "too  little,"  built  block  houses  in 
his  own  especial  comer.  Whether  the 
baby  brain  realized  that  his  position 
in  the  family  circle  was  not  quite  that 
of  the  others,  not  even  his  mother 
could  guess.  "He's  odd,"  she  admit- 
ted reluctantly  to  herself.  "I  can't 
help  but  own  that  much.  But  oddity 
isn't  foolishness,  and  I  won't  believe 
it  yet." 

One  day  in  David's  sixth  summer, 
she  determined  upon  a  daring  rebel- 
lion. The  grandparents  were  away 
for  a  round  of  "after  haying"  visits, 
Hiram  at  market  for  the  day,  and  the 
older  children  safe  in  school.  Seated 
with  David  by  her  side  in  the  dark- 
ened parlor.  Grandma  Webster's  sam- 
pler upon  her  lap,  she  went  patiently 


over  the  red,  blue  and  green  letters, 
while  the  child  repeated  them  with 
ready  acquiescence.  After  that  at 
every  opportunity  the  lessons  were 
repeated  and  the  hope  in  Malvina's 
heart  grew  into  triumphant  cer- 
tainty. 

"It's  our  secret,  Bubby,  yours  and 
mother's,"  Malvina'  cautioned,  and  the 
child  kept  it  loyally.  He  learned 
slowly,  but  with  a  depth  of  compre- 
hension which  even  the  mother  could 
not  realize,  since  he  asked  no  ques- 
tions and  made  few  comments.  A 
was  A  at  first  because  his  mother  said 
it  was ;  after  the  fact  had  become  fully 
absorbed  into  his  own  consciousness 
it  was  A  because  he  knew  it  was.  If 
a  thing  puzzled  him,  he  reasoned  it 
out  under  the  apple-trees  and  triimiph- 
antly  announced  his  solution  at  the 
next  lesson  time.  And  all  the  time  in 
the  family  circle  he  went  quietly  on 
with  his  own  concerns,  not  entirely 
neglected,  but  treated  in  every  respect 
like  one  to  whom  babyhood  was  a  per- 
manent estate. 

"He  isn't  a  absolute  fool,"  declared 
Aunt  Joey  upon  one  of  her  visits. 
But  Father  and  Grandfather  demurred 
remembering  the  alternative.  "Fool 
enough  to  save  him  from  being  a  vil- 
lain, I  hope,"  declared  Grandpa  Web- 
ster. "Like  enough  it'll  show  more 
as  his  body  grows,  leavin'  his  mind 
behind  it." 

The  lessons  continued  until  Malvina 
began  to  foresee  a  time  when  ex- 
posure would  be  inevitable,  since  her 
own  knowledge  was  limited  and  the 
absorbing  little  brain  was  beginning 
to  crave  information  which  she  could 
not  supply.  Then,  too,  she  often 
feared  lest  she  were  training  the  child 
in  dreadful  habits  of  deceit.    "Next 


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year  I'll  own  up  to  Hiram  and  have 
him  sent  to  school,"  she  promised  her- 
self, when  David,  on  his  tenth  birth- 
day, secretly  begged  her  for  a  book, 
and  received  instead  a  brightly  col- 
ored ball.  But  before  the  winter 
passed  came  Plainville's  great  spelling 
contest.  Squire  Thomas,  the  town's 
one  college  graduate,  offered  a  gold 
eagle  to  the  best  speller  between  the 
ages  of  eight  and  fifteen,  and  a  silk 
flag  to  the  school  of  Plainville  which 
should  outspell  the  others.  Two  of 
the  Webster  children  were  eligible 
and  went  about  from  day  to  day  witii 
spelling-book  or  dictionary  in  hand. 
David  in  his  corner  listened  with  un- 
suspected interest,  while  Hannah  and 
Sophia,  with  toes  ranged  carefully 
upon  a  crack  in  the  kitchen  floor, 
spelled  the  long  words  which  Grandpa 
announced  from  the  book.  He  sought 
his  mother  at  last  with  a  whispered 
petition.     Malvina  shook  her  head. 

"You  can  ride  over,  Bubby,  with 
Pa  and  me,"  she  promised.  "But 
mother  can't  let  you  spell." 

The  great  hall,  crowded  with  anx- 
ious parents,  each  seeking  their  own 
from  the  long  row  of  boys  and  girls 
on  either  side,  filled  David's  heart  with 
keen  delight.  Malvina,  watching  him, 
saw  his  lips  move  more  than  once  as 
he  spelled  the  words  over  to  himself. 
As  the  ranks  thinned,  he  watched  his 
sisters  anxiously.  Sophia's  hopes 
were  extinguished  early,  and  he  heard 
the  teacher  whisper  to  his  mother  in  a 
reassuring  tone  that  Sophia  was  the 
best  grammar  scholar  in  her  class. 
The  lines  grew  shorter.  Great  gaps 
followed  the  word  "reciprocity"  and 
"reprehensible"  threatened  to  exter- 
minate the  remainder  upon  the  spot. 
Hiram  and  Malvina  saw  with  appre- 


hension that  it  would  soon  come  to 
their  youngest  daughter,  whose  look 
was  anything  but  confident.  David, 
counting  beneath  his  breath,  saw  it 
too.  Hannah  was  his  favorite  sister, 
always  willing  to  lend  him  dolls  in 
earlier  days,  or  to  admit  him  to  her 
plays  of  keeping  house.  And  "repre- 
hensible" had  been  one  of  Grandpa 
Webster's  favorite  words  in  the 
kitchen  rehearsals  at  home.  Sudden- 
ly, before  she  had  even  missed  him 
from  her  side,  Malvina,  with  a  thrill 
of  dismay,  saw  a  little  figure  in  blue 
roundabout  appear  at  Hannah's  el- 
bow. He  was  whispering  eagerly. 
But  stage  fright  had  already  done  its 
work  for  Hannah  and  help  from  any 
source  was  too  late.  She  fled  in  dis- 
may to  her  seat,  while  a  clear  little 
voice,  sounding  above  the  creaking 
of  her  Sunday  shoes,  spelled  the  word 
confidently  and  correctly.  "It's  Web- 
ster's fool,"  shouted  some  one  and  the 
room  rang  with  applause.  Hiram 
Webster  turned  upon  his  wife  a  look 
of  withering  condemnation.  Then  he 
sat  in  rigid  silence  while  his  youngest 
born,  his  nervous  little  fingers  work- 
ing and  his  brown  eyes  shining  with 
delight,  spelled  eagerly  the  words  that 
were  defeating  the  youths  of  sixteen. 
David  felt  no  lack  of  confidence. 
Squire  Thomas,  giving  the  words  with 
solemn  emphasis  from  the  high  plat- 
form, had  reached  the  very  page  of 
the  spelling  book  upon  which  Grand- 
pa Webster  had  most  carefully  drilled 
his  granddaughters.  When  at  last 
David  returned  in  triumph  to  his 
mother's  side  and  pressed  the  gold 
eagle  into  her  hand,  Hiram  Webster 
could  not  forego  a  thrill  of  pride.  He 
patted  the  child's  head  fondly,  but  he 
spoke  resentfully  to  the  mother.     "So 


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THE   WEBSTER   CURSE 


then,  youVc  made  a  villain  of  him!" 
he  said. 

Plainville  could  not  forget  the  cloud 
that  rested  upon  Hiram  Webster's 
youngest  child.  The  curse  had  never 
failed  within  the  memory  of  man^  it 
was  declared,  and  since  the  child  was 
not  a  fool,  he  must  perforce  become  a 
villain.  Plainville  immediately  set  it- 
self to  watch  for  symptoms.  It  was 
noticed  that  when  David  made  his  first 
appearance  at  school,  he  immediately 
made  friends  with  the  Romneys,  who, 
ragged  and  half-fed,  had  ever  been 
the  objects  of  ridicule  and  abuse. 
That  his  attitude  towards  them  was 
the  same  patronizing  friendliness  he 
had  once  bestowed  upon  the  calves 
and  chickens,  quite  escaped  Plain- 
ville's  attention.  More  than  one  bat- 
tle David  waged  in  their  defence,  and 
mothers  whose  sons  came  home  bear- 
ing the  marks  of  his  strong  little  fists, 
whispered  one  to  another  of  the 
child's  desperate  character.  At  home 
the  grandmother  examined  him  fre- 
quently in  the  catechism  and  the 
father  exacted  far  more  rigid  obedi- 
ence than  had  been  required  of  the 
older  children.  Each  succeeding 
school-teacher  was  warned  to  watch 
him  carefully,  and  good  Elder  Noon, 
with  solemn  countenance,  lost  no  op- 
portunity to  read  him  long  lectures 
upon  the  folly  and  dire  consequence 
of  wrong  doing.  Through  it  all  the 
boy  grew  to  manhood  an  average 
youth  as  regards  conduct,  but  with 
growing  brilliancy  of  mind  and  a 
strong  independence  of  character 
which  secretly  delighted  his  paternal 
grandfather ;  and  at  seventeen  gravely 
announced  to  the  astonished  family 
his  intention  of  entering  collie. 

Hiram  Webster,  really  proud  of  his 


son's  scholarship  and  with  the  reck- 
less hope  that  since  fate  had  marked 
him  for  a  villain,  he  might  reach  a 
higher  estate  than  that  of  common 
criminal,  would  have  gladly  assisted 
in  the  collie  course.  But  the  farm 
had  been  mortgaged  to  set  Joseph  and 
John  up  in  business;  even  the  mother 
was  handicapped^  for  Hannah  was 
about  to  marry  and  all  the  butter  and 
egg  money  would  be  needed  for  her 
fitting  out.  David,  nothing  daunted, 
went  about  working  his  own  way, 
teaching  and  farming  in  vacations,  as 
so  many  had  done  before  him,  and  be- 
tween work  and  study  won  golden 
opinions  from  his  college  faculty. 
The  neighbors  almost  forgot  the  old 
tradition,  and  the  Webster  family, 
closely  following  his  movements,  be- 
gan to  hope  that  the  Webster  curse 
had  died  with  the  last  generation. 

But  it  all  came  up  again  when 
David  Webster  returned  to  Plainville 
and  hung  out  a  modest  legal  sign 
from  the  little  comer  room  over  the 
village  grocery.  Even  Malvina,  for 
the  first  time  in  her  son's  twenty-three 
years  of  life,  began  to  doubt.  As  a 
minister  they  would  all  have  r^;arded 
his  profession  as  a  shield.  As  a  doc- 
tor he  might  have  lived  down  any  in- 
born tendency  to  crime,  in  deeds  of 
healing.  But  a  lawyer — Plainville  re- 
garded the  legal  profession  as  villany 
itself.  The  one  old  lawyer  in  the  town 
shook  his  head  and  mournfully  pro- 
nounced him  a  "smart  boy"  in  tones 
which  warned  all  Plainville  to  beware. 
And  Plainville,  after  some  considera- 
tion, greeted  him  with  a  shade  of  re- 
serve, admitting  him  freely  to  church 
social  and  singing  school,  but  ignoring 
him  professionally. 

"Your  old  friend  Jim  Romney's  in 


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jail,"  announced  John  Webster,  as  he 
watched  David  affix  a  seal  to  a  legal 
document  in  favor  of  Webster 
Brothers,  Grocers.  "Guess  he'll  need 
something  stronger'n  your  fists  to  get 
him  out  of  this  scrape.  Been  stealin' 
John  Parker's  sheep,  as  might  have 
been  expected.*' 

John  departed  with  his  bill  of  sale 
and  David  sat  staring  out  into  the 
autumn  sunshine.  The  old  impulse 
that  had  led  him  to  champion  the 
Romneys  was  strong  upon  him.  Two 
hours  later  he  appeared  in  his  brother's 
store,  a  somewhat  embarrassed  look 
upon  his  face.  "I'm  bailing  Jim 
Romney,"  he  announced.  "But  they 
won't  take  my  bond  unless  one  of  you 
sign  it." 

Joseph  demurred  with  ready  cau- 
tion, but  John  good  humoredly  wrote 
his  name  across  the  paper.  "Give  the 
youngster  a  chance,  Joe,"  hej  argued, 
as  the  young  lawyer  disappeared. 
"Villain  or  fool,  he's  our  brother,  and 
we  may  as  well  stand  by  him.  If  we 
don't,  who  will?" 

That  same  afternoon  David  Web- 
ster strolled  out  towards  the  Romney 
place.  The  late  prisoner  sat  despond- 
ently upon  the  broken  doorstep. 
"Yes,"  he  said,  in  answer  to  David's 
question.  "Somebody  got  me  bailed 
out.  Squire  Thomas,  I  wouldn't  won- 
der. He's  always  been  a  kind  of 
friend  to  our  family.  But  I  don't 
know  yet  how  it's  comin'  out." 

David  cleared  his  throat,  visibly 
embarrassed.  "I  didn't  know  but  you 
might  need  legal  advice,"  he  said. 
"Anything  I  can  do  for  you  needn't 
cost  you  a  cent."  James  Romney 
hx>ked  doubtful.  "I'm  highly  obliged 
to  you,  Dave,"  he  said  slowly,  "  'n'  I 
wouldn't  want  to  hurt  your  feelin's  by 


bringin'  up  old  talk.  But  the  fact  is 
you  ain't  got  the  confidence  of  the 
community  and  I  calc'late  my  lawyer 
is  goin'  to  need  all  the  standin'  he  can 
get.  Anyhow,  I  shouldn't  want  to 
take  the  chances."  Two  days  later 
James  Romney  came  into  the  little  of- 
fice where  David  sat  alone. 

"These  other  fellows  don't  seem  in- 
clined to  take  hold  of  my  case,"  he  ex- 
plained despondently.  "I've  just  been 
over  to  the  county  seat  to  see  Jenkins, 
and  he  says  'twould  be  leadin'  a  for- 
lorn hope,  whatever  that  is.  So  I 
don't  see  but  what  I've  got  to  take  my 
chances  with  you.  Anyhow  if  I  go 
to  prison  in  the  end,  I'll  have  the  satis- 
faction of  knowin'  it  didn't  cost  me 
nothing'."  David  pushed  a  chair  to- 
ward him — his  first  client.  "Sit  down 
and  let's  talk  it  over,  Jim,"  he  said 
cordially. 

Plainville  was  not  wont  to  concern 
itself  greatly  with  the  doings  of  the 
county  court,  since  the  county  seat  was 
regarded  with  feelings  of  rivalry  by 
all  public  spirited  Plainvillians.  But 
on  the  afternoon  of  James  Romney's 
trial  a  long  procession  of  teams  trav- 
ersed the  five  miles  of  hill  and  val- 
ley, and  the  prisoner,  with  much  com- 
placency, remarked  the  interest  of  his 
townsmen  in  his  affairs.  It  was  a 
simple  case  enough.  John  Parker 
had  lost  a  sheep  from  his  pasture  next 
the  Romney  farm.  James  Romney, 
the  day  following  its  disappearance, 
had  been  known  to  dine  upon  roast 
mutton,  his  wife  had  been  seen  pick- 
ing wool,  and  a  newly  killed  sheep- 
skin had  been  found  in  his  barn.  Add 
to  this  the  well-known  character  of 
the  Romneys,  inherited  from  genera- 
tions of  shiftless  ancestry,  and  the 
conclusion  was  inevitable.    The  prose- 


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cution  was  triumphant  in  positive 
proof.  The  defence  was  weak  and 
inadequate — admitting  the  roast — the 
wool — the  sheepskin — ^and  resting 
upon  the  improbable  plea  that  a  sheep 
with  a  broken  1^  had  been  bestowed 
upon  James  Romney  by  a  passing 
drover,  in  return  for  assistance  in  get- 
ting his  drove  past  the  broken  fences 
of  the  Romney  farm.  As  the  lawyer 
for  the  prosecution  sarcastically  re- 
marked, "the  only  element  of  proba- 
bility was  the  broken  fences." 

The  drover,  though  searched  for 
near  and  far,  had  not  been  found. 
There  was  no  doubt  of  the  prisoner's 
guilt  in  the  minds  of  audience,  judge 
or  jury,  when  his  counsel  rose  to 
make  his  plea.  Plainville,  settling 
itself  in  a  critical  attitude,  listened  at- 
tentively. More  than  one  old  towns- 
man suddenly  recalled  an  eager-eyed 
little  boy  spelling  down  a  long  line  of 
youths  and  maidens  in  the  old  town 
hall.  Half  an  hour  later  the  jury 
brought  in  the  unanimous  verdict  of 
"not  guilty." 

"I  know  it,"  acknowledged  Eph- 
riam  Emery,  foreman  of  the  jury,  in 
the  Plainville  post-office  next  morn- 
ing. "There  wasn't  no  proof  that  he 
didn't  do  it  no  more'n  there  was  that 
he  did  do  it.  And  knowin'  the  Rom- 
ney s,  the  latter  was  enough  sight  more 
probable.  But  when  Dave  Webster 
got  up  and  spoke  there  wasn't  a  man 
on  the  jury  but  what  seed  that  drover 
comin'  along  there  after  dark ;  and 
that  broken-legged  sheep;  and  Jim 
runnin'  alongside  of  the  wagon ;  and 
what's  more,  we  see  John  Parker's 
sheep  gettin'  off  into  the  swamp  fur- 
ther 'n'  further  and  heard  it  bleatin' 
an'  bleatin',  till  it  sunk  in  a  bog  hole 
out  of  sight.  There  wasn't  an  atom  of 


doubt  as  to  jest  how  'twas.  An'  it 
wasn't  Dave's  way  of  talkin'  alone 
neither.  No  man  on  earth  could  have 
talked  like  that  without  he  had  truth 
and  justice  behind  him." 

"Yes,  Dave's  dead  honest,"  added 
another  member  of  the  jury  emphati- 
cally. "Last  night  after  court  let  out, 
Cyrus  Martin,  over  to  Spencer,  he 
steps  right  up  and  offers  Dave  the 
case  of  the  woolen  mill  against  the 
railroad.  Big  offer  too  for  a  boy  of 
his  size.  But  Dave  he  colored  up 
kind  of  queer,  just  like  a  girl  and  says 
he,  *I  thank  you  kindly,  Mr.  Martin,' 
says  he,  'and  you've  got  a  good  case/ 
says  he,  'but,'  says  he,  *I  promised 
my  mother  I  wouldn't  never  take  no 
case  I  couldn't  see  the  dead  right  of." 

"I  reckon  he's  a  fool,"  declared  the 
postmaster  with  some  contempt. 
"Fool  enough  to  save  him  from  being 
a  villain,  I  hope,"  interposed  the 
voice  of  John  Webster,  unconscious- 
ly quoting  his  grandfather's  words. 

It  was  a  year  later  that  Hiram 
Webster's  oldest  brother  came  for  a 
visit  to  his  boyhood  home  bring- 
itag  with  him  his  Western  wife. 
"I  always  took  a  deep  interest  in  the 
thought  of  David,"  Mrs.  Edward  re- 
marked, as  she  turned  the  leaves  of 
the  family  photograph  album.  "We 
lost  a  baby  a  week  older  than  he.  No, 
I  don't  know  as  you  ever  did  know 
about  it,  for  things  was  going  hard 
with  us  then,  and  we  didn't  take  it 
so  hard  as  we  have  later  in  remem- 
berin'  it.    It  only  lived  a  week." 

Grandma  Webster's  eyes  sought 
those  of  her  younger  daughter-in- 
law.  Malvina's  eyes  shone  and  her 
head  was  proudly  erect.  "It  never 
made  a  mite  of  difference  to  me,"  she 
said. 


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Gen.  Nelson  A.  Miles 

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Men  and  Events  of  the  Day 


lELSON  A.   MILES 


service  Rican  campaign,  but  by  that  time  the 

Miles'  war  was  practically  over.     While  he 

:ed.   A  was   at   the    front,   the   photographs, 

irilliant  given  by  the  New  England  Maga- 

fncn  of  ziNE  in  this  issue,  were  taken  by  W. 

lakes  a  F.  Turner,  and  they  are  well  worth 
preserving  in  permanent  form  from 

.  True,  the  association  of  General  Wheeler  in 

people,  "the  group. 

th,  and  Wheeler  and  Miles!     The  impetu- 

in  dan-  ous,  fiery  Confederate  cavalry  leader 

his  en-  of  the  sixties,  now  in  army  blue,  a 
major-general   under  the  old  flag,  a 

ectacu-  veteran  in  years,  but  a  youth  in  heart 

yet  it  and  strength, — and   side  by  side,  as 

3re  his  companion   in  arms,   one  of  his   old 

ninety  opponents,    now    the    chief    of    the 

he  did  United  States  forces! 

ig  and  With  Wheeler,  at  his  headquarters 

y  horse  at  Tampa,  Florida,  was  an  interesting 

Rebel-  set  of  men.     Their  names  and  rank 

also  in  as  it  stood  in   1898  are  given  under 

ig  that  the  picture.     From  their  number  one 

ild  ride  picks  out  with  especial  curiosity  the 

lashing  son  of  Wheeler  himself  and  the  son 

r  mind,  of  Miles,  the  younger  generation  with 

would  the  older,  and  close  by,  also,  the  son 
of  Alger,  another  veteran  of  the  Civil 

les  had  War,   and   during   the   Spanish   war 

t  Porto  McKinley's  Secretary  of  War. 


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The  New  Pope 


GUISEPPE   SARTO,  SUCCESSOR  TO   LEO   XIII 


The  unexpected  has  happened. 
Guiseppe  Sarto,  patriarch  of  Venice, 
has  become  Pope  Pius  X.  When  the 
old  cardinal — he  is  sixty-eight,  the 
same  age  as  Leo  XIII  when  he  ac- 
cepted the  papal  chair — ^left  his  home 
to  attend  the  solemn  conclave  some 
one  hinted  at  the  probabilities.  He 
laughed.  "No/'  he  repUed,  "I  have 
bought  my  return  ticket  to  Ven- 
ice." 

But  after  four  days  fruitless  bal- 
loting, his  associates  united  upon  the 
worthy  patriarch.    A  handsome  man, 


with  a  fine  figure,  and  a  dignified  car- 
riage, Pius  X  also  possesses  a  warm 
heart,  a  kindly  nature  and  a  simple, 
conciliatory  spirit  that  will  aid  much 
in  carrying  out  the  policies  of  his  pre- 
decessor. 

It  is  said  that  Cardinal  Sarto  was 
so  overcome  with  emotion  by  his  elec- 
tion that  the  tears  rolled  down  his 
cheeks  and  his  strength  almost  gave 
way.  His  kindly  heart  was  shown 
by  the  first  act  of  his  pontificate — 
a  visit  to  Cardinal  Herrero,  who  lay 
sick  in  his  cell  at  the  conclave. 

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MEN    AND    EVENTS   OF   THE   DAY 


THE  AMERICA   CUP 


Another  race  for  the  America 
Cup  now  goes  down  to  history.  The 
latest  triumphs  of  British  and  Yan- 
kee ship-building  skill  have  their 
friendly  contest,  and  all  honor  goes 
to  the  victor. 

But  no  one  can  forget  that  great- 
est triumph  of  all,  fifty-two  years 
ago,  when  the  America  herself,  en- 
tered against  the  crack  cutters  and 
schooners  of  England,  first  "lifted" 
that  homely  but  now  illustrious 
cup. 

"Who  is  first?"  queried  Queen 
Victoria  of  her  old  signal  master, 
on  board  the  Victoria  and  Albert 
royal  yacht  as  she  gazed  into  the 
haze. 

"The  America,"  was  the  reply. 

"And  who  is  second?" 

"Your  majesty,  there  is  no  sec- 
ond." 

That  told  the  story.  The  victory 
was  complete,  and  the  tune  of 
"Yankee  Doodle"  rightfully  and 
tactfully  greeted  the  winners  on 
their  return  to  Cowes. 

The  America  was  raced  by  three 
typical  Americans,  the  Stevens 
brothers,  men  of  affairs,  and  James 
A.  Hamilton,  son  of  Alexander 
Hamilton.  Their  social  position 
was  recognized  by  the  Queen  in  her 
visit  to  the  Yankee  schooner  at  Os- 
borne, the  day  after  the  race.  With 
the  Queen  were  her  husband.  Prince 
Consort  Albert,  with  four  gentle- 
men and  two  ladies  (Lady  Desart 
and  Miss  Bing).  Among  the  num- 
ber was  Lord  Alfred  Paget,  who 
certainly   was   natural   to   the   sea, 


since  his  father,  the  Marquis  of 
Anglesey,  is  said  to  have  christened 
him  by  dipping  him  head  fore- 
most into  the  ocean  from  his  yacht 
Pearl 

It  is  said  that  the  last  survivor  of 
the  original  America  crew  is  Capt. 
Henry  C.  Hoffman  of  Brooklyn, 
N.  Y.  He  was  a  boy  aboard  the 
boat  during  the  race. 


LiPTON  IN  Yachting  Costume 


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THE 

New  England  Magazine 

NEW  Series  OCTOBER,  1903  Vol.  XXIX  No.  2 

(*    OCT  3  1903  '"^ 

The  Return  of  the  British  to  B^^Ji^i^ 

in  1903 

By  Arthur  T.  Lovell 


WITHIN  a  few  days  after 
the  publication  of  this 
number  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Magazine,  the  Hon- 
ourable Artillery  Company  of  Lon- 
don will  visit  the  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Artillery  Company  of 
Massachusetts.  The  visit  will  be 
typical  of  the  modern  growth  of  cor- 
dial relations  between  the  United 
States  and  Great  Britain,  a  growth 
which  the  two  companies  have  done 
much  to  promote.  It  will  also  inter- 
est students  of  New  England  history. 
To  them  it  will  mean  even  more  than 
the  entrance  of  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
into  Windsor  Castle  meant  to  the 
English  seven  years  ago.  Memories 
of  1775  will  surround  the  visitors 
as  they  march  past  the  Bunker  Hill 
Monument  and  through  State  Street. 


Memories  of  American  valor  in  the 
Revolutionary  War  will  increase  the 
heartiness  of  the  reception  to  be  given 
by  descendants  of  the  Revolutionary 
heroes. 

The  Honourable  Artillery  Com- 
pany cannot  strictly  be  considered 
the  descendant  of  the  British  troops 
that  e\'acuated  Boston  in  1776.  Its 
function  was  home  defence  and  the 
training  of  officers,  not  the  subjection 
of  rebellious  colonies.  The  principle 
at  stake  in  the  Revolution  was  one 
of  government;  there  was  no  contest 
between  the  people  of  England  and 
those  of  America;  and  the  English  of 
later  generations  have  been  indebted 
to  Americans  for  the  stand  that  they 
took.  Chartered  by  Henry  VIII  in 
I537»  ^s  the  *'Maisters  and  Rulers 
and  Cominaltie  of  the  Fraternitie  or 


137 

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Guylde  of  Artillary  of  Longbowes, 
Crosbowes  and  Handegonnes/'  this 
ancient  military  body  was  granted 
license  to  use  and  shoot  with  the 
long-bowes,  cross-bowes,  and  hand- 
guns, both  in  London  and  the  sub- 
urbs, and  all  other  parts  of  the  realm 
of  England,  Ireland,  Calais  and 
Wales.  This  right  was  exclusive. 
138 


No  other  fraternity  or  guild  could  bo 
formed  in  any  part  of  the  realm  with- 
out this  one's  consent. 

The  new  "Fraternitie,"  or,  as  it 
was  afterwards  called,  the  "Artillery 
Company,"  g^ew  in  influence  as 
the  years  progressed.  Its  first 
great  public  service  was  in  1588, 
when      England      was      threatened 


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Faneuil  Hall,  Boston 

Headquarters  of  the  Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery  Company 

Then      and   it   continued   in   force  until  the 


with  invasion  from  Spain, 
its  members  were  appointed  to 
various  commands  in  the  great  camp 
at  Tilbury,  and  prepared  the  citizen 
soldiers  to  encounter  the  invaders. 
In  recognition  of  this  service  its 
members  were  granted  by  Queen 
Elizabeth  the  rank  of  officers  in  the 
train  bands,  the  organization  becom- 
ing in  reality  a  school  of  military 
instruction.  This  right  was  reaf- 
firmed in  1697  by  William  III,  who 
made  membership  a  necessary  quali- 
fication for  rank  in  the  train  bands, 


latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
From  this  point  of  view,  the  Artillery 
Company  gave  birth  to  the  modern 
militia  of  England. 

Xoblemen,  men  of  letters  and  emi- 
nent citizens  were  found  on  the 
muster  roll.  John  Milton,  the  poet, 
joined  in  1635.  Ivlcmbers  of  the 
Royal  Family  joined  in  164 1,  in  the 
person  of  Charles,  Prince  of  Wales, 
who  afterwards  became  Charles  II, 
C  harles,  Duke  of  Bavaria,  and  James, 
Duke     of     York.       Prince     Rupert 

139 

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RETURN    OF   THE    BRITISH 


joined  in  1664,  and  Sir  Christopher 
Wren,  the  architect  of  St.  Paul's  Ca- 
thedral, in  1669.  Samuel  Pepys  was 
one  of  the  Stewards  in  1677.  No 
members  were  admitted  from  1644  to 
1657.  The  company  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  Cavaliers,  although 
many  of  its  members,  who  were  con- 
nected with  the  train  bands  of  Lon- 
don, gained  prominence  in  the  Par- 
liamentary army.  Revival  came 
under  Cromwell,  the  Protector.  In 
1660,  with  Charles  II  on  the  throne, 
the  company  had  regained  its  prestige 
so  far  that  the  Duke  of  York  accepted 
election  as  "Commander  in  Chief." 
From  that  day  to  the  present,  with 
one  short  interval,  the  sovereign  or 
heir  apparent  has  held  the  command, 
practically  all  of  the  time  as  "Captain 
General  and  Colonel,"  first,  however, 
being  elected  a  member. 

As  the  tide  of  emigration  set 
westward,  several  members  of  the 
company  settled  in  the  Massachusetts 
colony,  making  their  homes  in  and 
near  Boston.  Train  bands  then  ex- 
isted in  seven  of  the  fifteen  towns. 
They  were  a  greater  necessity  here 
than  they  had  been  in  London,  for 
the  Indians  were  near  neighbors. 
The  officers  of  these  scattered  organ- 
izations, some  of  them  former  mem- 
bers of  this  or  other  English 
companies,  but  many  of  them  with  no 
military  training,  felt  the  need  of  in- 
struction, and  conferences  with  mag- 
istrates and  business  men  resulted  in 
the  formation  of  a  central  association, 
which  in  1637  began  meetings  for 
drill.  Application  for  a  charter  was 
made  to  Governor  Winthrop,  but  re- 
fused, the  Governor  pointing  out 
"how  dangerous  it  might  be  to  erect 


a  standing  authority  of  military  men, 
which  might  easily,  in  time,  over- 
throw the  civil  power."  The  next 
year,  however,  this  fear  was  dispelled, 
and  on  March  17,  O.  S.,  the  charter 
was  granted. 

This  interesting  document  consti- 
tuted Robert  Keayne,  Nathaniell 
Duncan,  Robert  Sedgwick,  and 
WilliaiT^  Spencer,  their  associates  and 
successors,  "The  Millitary  Company 
of  the  Massachusetts."  It  gave  them, 
or  the  greater  number  of  them,  lib- 
erty to  choose  all  their  officers,  spe- 
cifically providing  that  their  captain 
and  lieutenant  should  be  "always 
such  as  the  Court  or  Council  shall  al- 
low of,"  but  agreeing  that  no  officer 
should  "be  piit  upon  them,  but  of 
their  own  choice."  It  appointed  the 
first  Monday  in  every  month,  or, 
failing  that,  the  sixth  day  of  the  same 
week,  for  their  meeting  and  exercise, 
and  "to  the  end  that  they  may  not 
be  hindered  from  coming  together," 
ordered  that,  within  fixed  territorial 
Hmits,  "no  other  training  in  the  par- 
ticular towns,  nor  other  ordinary 
town  meetings,"  should  take  place  on 
that  day.  Their  orders  "for  the  better 
managing  their  military  affairs"  were 
made  subject  to  approval  by  "the 
Court  or  Council."  Liberty  was 
given  to  assemble  for  military  exer- 
cises in  any  town  within  the  jurisdic- 
tion. 

Keayne,  whose  name  appeared  first 
in  the  charter,  and  who  signed  it  as 
a  Deputy,  had  joined  the  London  or- 
ganization in  1623,  and,  emigrating 
in  1635,  had  suggested  the  establish- 
ment of  a  similar  institution  in  the 
home  of  his  adoption.  Sedgwick 
had  been  connected  with  an  artillery 


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141 


Commission  of  Martin  Gay  as  Captain  of  the  Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery 

Company,  i772 


company  in  London,  probably  "The 
Military  Garden,"  and  was  captain  of 
the  train  band  in  Charlestown.  Dun- 
can was  captain  of  the  train  band  in 
Dorchester.  Spencer,  who  had 
joined  the  London  company  in  1611, 
was  lieutenant  of  the  train  band  in 
Cambridge.  The  four  men  repre- 
sented the  four  principal  towns  in  the 
county.     Associated  with  them  were 


twenty-one  residents  of  their  own 
towns  and  also  of  Lynn,  Salem  and 
Watertown,  nearly  all  of  whom  had 
military  experience,  and  considerably 
more  than  half  of  whom  were  or  had 
been  members  of  the  General  Court. 
They  completed  the  organization  of 
the  company,  choosing  Keayne  as  its 
captain. 

The  uniform   they   adopted   is   not 

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Some  Officffs  of  the  American  Company 

142 

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Some  Leading  Members  of  the  English  Company 

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RETURN    OF   THE    BRITISH 


known.  All  that  can  be  said  on  the 
subject  is  that  at  that  period  in  New 
England  history  men  at  arms  wore 
*'a  steel  morion  or  helmet,  without 
a  visor,  but  with  check  pieces  and 
a  long  scarlet  plume,  and  a  cuirass 
and  back  plate'*  over  "a  buff  coat/' 
The  muskets  were  large  and  heavy. 
They  were  fired  by  match  rope  from 
a  forquette,  or  forked  rest.  The 
captain  of  *'The  Military  Company*' 
carried  a  leading  staff,  the  lieutenant 
a  half-pike,  and  the  sergeants  hal- 
berds. The  men  were  armed  and 
equipped  as  musketeers. 

During  the  first  year  of  existence 
fifty-seven  recruits  v/ere  admitted, 
but  after  that  they  were  secured  more 
slowly — twenty-one  in  1639-40,  twen- 
ty-four in  1640-T,  and  twenty-two  in 
1642-3.  The  seed  had  been  planted, 
and  the  tree  grew,  sometimes  rapidly, 
sometimes  slowly,  as  if  the  frosts  of 
winter  bore  severely  upon  it.  Captain 
Keayne  outlined  the  history  of  the 
first  few  years.  He  said  in  1653  ^^^^ 
the  "Noble  Society'*  of  the  Artillery 
Company  *'hath  so  farr  prospered  by 
the  blessing  of  God  as  to  helpe  many 
with  good  experience  in  the  use  of 
theire  Armes  &  more  exact  knowl- 
edge in  the  Military  Art  &  hath 
beene  a  nursery  to  raise  up  many 
able  and  well  experienced  souldiers 
that  hath  done  since  good  service  for 
their  country.'*  A  period  of  decline 
was  in  progress  when  he  wrote. 
"My  griefe  is  the  more/*  he  contin- 
ued, *'to  see  this  sometime  flourishing 
&  highly  prized  Company  that  when 
the  Country  grows  more  populus  this 
Company  should  grow  more  thin  & 
ready  to  dissolve  for  want  of  appear- 
ance but  some  are  weary   &   theus 


thinke  they  have  gott  experience 
enough  so  the  most  begins  to  ne^:^- 
lect."  He  never  saw  the  company 
again  in  really  flourishing  condition, 
for  he  died  in  1656  and  the  revival 
did  not  begin  until  1669. 

In  the  first  century  (1638-1737)  952 
names  appeared  upon  the  roll. 
Many  were  those  of  men  who  had 
attained  or  did  attain  great  distinc- 
tion in  civil  and  military  life.  Zach- 
ariah  G.  Whitman,  for  several  years 
clerk  of  the  company,  wrote  in  his 
history  that  "the  most  distinguished 
and  honorable  men  in  the  country 
comprised  its  early  members." 
Among  them  were  two  Governors 
and  three  Deputy  Governors  of  the 
Colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  three 
Governors  of  the  Province,  one 
President  of  the  Colony,  twenty-one 
Speakers  of  the  House  of  Deputies, 
seventy-four  Selectmen  of  Boston, 
twelve  "Managers  of  the  Affairs  of 
the  Town,'*  and  a  number  of  gradu- 
ates of  Harvard  and  of  donors  to 
Harvard.  Keayne  himself  left  by 
will  one  hundred  pounds,  and,  con- 
ditionally, six  hundred  and  twenty 
pounds  more,  to  the  college.  Nearly 
all  of  the  officers  of  the  Suffolk, 
Middlesex,  Essex  and  Norfolk  Reg- 
iments, upon  their  organization  in 
1644,  eight  Major  Generals  of  the 
Militia  from  1649  to  1686,  and  six 
commanders  of  the  Boston  Regiment 
from  its  origin  to  its  abolition,  were 
or  had  been  members  of  "The  Mili- 
tary Company.*'  Many  members  or 
former  members  served  as  officers  in 
King  Philip*s  war;  twelve  went  to 
England  to  fight  for  the  Parliament, 
and  two  were  commissioned  by 
Cromwell  to  raise  volunteers  in  New 


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England  for  an  expedition  against 
the  Dutch  at  New  Amsterdam.  The 
pages  of  Massachusetts  history  bris- 
tle with  the  names  of  members  who 
took  part  in  colonial  or  provincial 
defence.  The  organization  and  sup- 
port of  churches,  the  introduction  of 
manufactures,  the  extension  of  trade, 
the  nurturing  of  the  public  schools, 
might  also  be  cited  to  show  the  part 
played  in  civic;  life  by  men  identified 
with  the  movement  which  had  at  first 


been  rejected.  Even  Governor 
Winthrop's  sons  became  members  as 
they  reached  maturity. 

Other  military  organizations  were 
formed  and  died  or  were  reorganized, 
but  these  two  companies,  parent  and 
child,  one  in  England  and  one  in 
Massachusetts,  have  maintained  an 
unbroken  existence  from  that  day  to 
this.  Each  has  had  times  of  distress. 
As  has  already  been  stated,  the  Eng- 
lish company  had  a  period  of  sus- 

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^_  Photo  by  Chickering 

Arthur  T.  Lovell 

Secretary  Committee   on  Reception  and  KnterUiinment 


Capt.   Albert   A.   Folsom 

Treasurer  Committee  on  Reception  and  Entertainment 


pendcd  animation  from  1644  to  1657,  and  trooping**  in  Boston.  In  1775 
a  time  of  civil  strife.  Its  meetings  the  Common  w^is  occupied  by  British 
were  also  stopped  teinporarily  by  the       troops,  and  admittance  to  it  for  ex- 


Plague  and  the 
Great  Fire  in 
London.  The 
Massachusetts 
company  held  no 
meetings  from 
1687  to  1691, 
either  because 
Governor  Andros 
suppressed  them 
or  because  the 
membership  was 
divided  by  a 
quarrel  between 
the  churches.  In 
1 72 1  the  Fall 
Field  Day  parade 
was  omitted,  a 
smallpox  epidem- 
ic having  caused 
the  General  As- 
sembly to  "for- 
bid all  training 
146 


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A.  Shuman 

Chairman  Finance  Committee. 


ercise  and  evolu- 
tions was  re- 
fused. 

During  the 
Revolutionary 
War  no  meetings 
were  held,  the 
members  gener- 
ally being  active- 
ly engaged  in  the 
fi  e  1  d,  where 
many  were  killed 
or  wounded,  and 
only  fifteen  were 
left  to  resume 
active  company 
operations  in  the 
summer  of  1786. 
Later  in  that 
year,  however, 
there  being  an 
* 'emergency  of 
publick    affairs," 


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Photo  by  Chickering 

Sergt.  Fred  M.  Purmort 

Cluirman  of  Committee  on  Hotels  and  Banquets 

the  company  volunteered  its  services 
for  the  maintenance  of  law  and  order. 
Through  all  these  periods  the  com- 
panies respectively  kept  their  organi- 
zation intact,  and  they  are  now  the 
oldest  military  bodies  existing  m  tne 
countries  of  which  they  are  part. 

The  English  cotiipany  was  popu- 
larly styled  the  "Military  Glory  of  the 
Nation"  in  1658.  It  was  called  the 
"Company  of  the  Artillery  Garden" 
])y  Charles  1  in  1632,  and  '*our  Artil- 
lery Company"  by  Charles  II  in  1681. 
"Honourable"  was  first  applied  to  it 
in  1685,  the  title  thus  received,  ''Hon- 
ourable Artillery  Company,"  being 
confirmed  by  Queen  Victoria  in  1860. 
P»y  Royal  command  it  ranks  in  sen- 
iority immediately  following  the 
regular  army  of  the  British  Empire, 
and  before  the  militia,  yeomanry  and 


volunteer  forces.  It  may  be  called 
into  service  whenever  militia'  is  em- 
bodied, and  may  be  required  to  act 
in  aid  of  the  civil  power;  but  it  is 
the  only  force  which  the  King  can 
call  out  without  the  consent  of  Parlia- 
ment, and  therefore  may  be  consid- 
ered "the  Sovereign's  body  guard." 
In  1780  it  played  a  conspicuous  part 
in  the  suppression  of  the  Gordon 
Riots,  during  which  it  was  under 
arms  for  six  days,  and  helped  to 
keep  the  peace  during  the  trial  of 
Lord  George  Gordon.  In  1781  it 
guarded  the  Bank  of  England,  in 
r794  helped  to  maintain  tranquillity 
during  a  trial  for  high  treason,  and 
in  1803  prepared  to  join  in  resisting 
a  threatened  invasion  by  the  French. 
In  1848  it  was  called  into  service  on 


Photo  by  Chickering 

Capt.  J.  Stearns  Gushing 

Chairman  of  Committee  on  Press  and  Printing 


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Arms  of  the  A.  &  H.  A.  C. 

account  of  the  intention  of  the  Char- 
tists to  proceed  to  the  House  of 
Commons,  its  detail  being  to  occupy 
the  Guildhall  and  to  defend  South- 
vvark  bridge,  but  it  was  relieved  after 
a  few  hours.  It  attended  Lord  Nel- 
son's funeral  in  1806,  assisted  to  lay 
the  foundation  stone  of  London 
Bridge  in  ]82S,  attended  the  Corona- 
tions of  George  IV  and  William  IV, 
acted  as  a  Guard  of  Honor  at  the 
opening  of  the  Internation'al  Exhibi- 
tion in  1863,  and  on  many  occasions 
has  acted  as  Guard  of  Honor  to  the 
King  of  England,  Queen  Victoria,  the 
Lord  Mayor,  and  visiting  European 
monarchs. 

At  the  present  time  the  Honourable 
Artillery  Company  consists  of  six 
companies  of  infantry,  two  batteries 
of  horse  artillery  and  a  veteran 
company.  The  infantry  wears  the 
uniform  of  the  Grenadier  Guards, 
and  the  Artillery  that  of  the  Royal 
Horse  Artillery.  In  each  case, 
however,  silver  takes  the  place  of 
gold,  the  former  being  indicative 
of  volunteer  service,  and    the    latter 


of  service  in  the  regular  army.  The 
scarlet  coat  of  the  infantry  dates 
from  1722.  The  full  Grenadier  uni- 
form dates  from  1830,  when  it  was 
adopted  for  both  infantry  and  artil- 
lery, but  the  unifomi  of  the  artillery 
division  was  changed  to  blue  in  185 1. 
No  alteration  can  be  made  without 
the  King's  consent.  The  number,  uf 
members  is  about  eight  hundred.  If 
one  of  them  should  be  discharged 
against  his  will,  he  has  the  right  of 
appeal  to  the  King,  through  the  Sec- 
retary of  State,  for  relief.  King  Ed- 
ward VII  commands  the  regiment,  for 
that  is  what  it  really  is.  The  Lieuten- 
ant Colonel  commanding  is  the  Earl 
of  Denbigh  and  Desmond,  who,  as 
a  Royal  Artillery  officer,  saw  service 
in  Egypt  and  India,  taking  part  in  the 
battle  of  Tel-el-Kebir,  and  later 
served  as  A.  D.  C.  to  Lord  London- 
derry, Lord  Lieutenant  of  Ireland. 
Lord  Denbigh  is  a  Lord-in-Waiting. 
to  the  King.  In  the  House  of  Lords 
he  represents  the  Irish  office, 
answering  questions  and  running  un- 
important government  bills. 


Arms  of  the  H.  A.  C. 


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50 

o 

o 

3E 


The  Massachusetts  company  did 
not  long  keep  its  original  name. 
Like  its  English  parent,  it  became  the 
■'Artillery  Company''  and  then  the 
''Honorable  Artillery  Company," 
sometinkes  being  called  the  "Great 
Artillery."  In  1708,  twenty-three 
years  after  the  name  "Honorable 
Artillery  Company"  was  first  used  in 
England,  the  Artillery  sermon  in  Bos- 
ton was  preached  before  the  "Honor- 
able   Artillery     Company"     of    this 


State.  The  sermon  of  1738  was 
preached  before  the  "Honorable  and 
Ancient  Artillery  Company."  Subse- 
quent sermons  were  preached  before 
the  "Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery 
Company."  "It  seems,  therefore," 
said  Rev.  Oliver  A.  Roberts  in  his  his- 
tory, "that  at  the  expiration  of 
seventy  years,  when  the  Company 
was  composed  of  the  foremost  men  in 
the  town,  and  the  successive  captains 
for  several  years  had  been  persons  of 

H9 


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Sergt.  Thos.  Cahill 

Died  May  q,  1903 
For  many  years  the  oldest  member  of  A.  &  H.  A.  C. 

high  civil  positions,  the  title  'Honor- 
able' was  given  by  common  consent ; 
and  at  the  end  of  the  first  century  of 
the  Company's  existence  the  word 
'Ancient'  was  added,  expressive  of  its 
longevity."  This  name  has  been  con- 
firmed by  Acts  of  the  Legislature  and 
by  Acts  of  Congress.  As  w'as  the  case 
in  the  MiHtia  Act  of  1902,  the  first 
Militia  Act  preserved  all  priv- 
ileges to  which  the  company  had 
been  entitled.  Concerning  this  Act, 
an  interesting  story  is  told  in  Whit- 
man's history.  In  1788  the  aid  of 
Major  General  Benjamin  Lincoln  was 
''solicited  in  framing  the  first  militia 
law  of  the  United  States,  and  when 
the  committee  had  the  subject  under 
consideration,  after  he  had  resigned 
from  the  Cabinet,  he  introduced  a 
clause  to  preserve  the  ancient  privi- 
leges and  customs  of  such  indepen- 
dent corps  as  were  then  created  by 
charter  or  otherwise.  Gen.  Blount, 
of  Carolina,  one  of  the  committee, 
was  vehemently  opposed   to  any  such 


clause,  when  Gen.  Lincoln  stated 
the  origin  and  claims  of  the  Ancient 
and  Honorable  Artillery.  Blount,  in 
a  passion  and  with  a  sneer,  ex- 
claimed,  'And,  pray,   who  in   h 1 

commands  the  Ancient  and  Honor- 
able.'^' Gen.  Lincoln  calmly  replied, 
*Your  humble  servant.'  "  * 

Although  the  senior  military  organ- 
ization, the  company  does  not  form 
part  of  the  active  militia,  and  is  not 
required  to  go  into  camp  or  to  qualify 
marksmen.  It  is  responsible  to  the 
Governor,  in  this  respect  being 
like  its  parent.  Reference  has  already 
been  made  to  the  services  which  it 
rendered  in  the  days  of  the  colony; 
it  has  continued  those  services 
through  the  centuries  that  have  fol- 
lowed. In  1814,  when  an  immediate 
attack  upon  Boston  vv^s  expected, 
many  of  its  members  were  absent, 
having  been  ordered  out  with  the 
militia  bodies  in  which  they  held  com- 
missions, but  thirty-one  active  mem- 
bers holding  no  commissions  in  the 
militia,  and  nine  former  active  mem- 
bers, then  exempt  by  law  from  mili- 
tary duty,  volunteered  their  services 
under  the  Captain  of  that  year.  .Sep- 
tember 10  they  were  warned  to  re- 
spond to  the  first  alarm;  October  26 
they  were  called  upon  for  guard  duty 
at  Faneuil  Hall ;  December  8  the  com- 
pany returned  to  its  peace  footing. 
At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  with 
Spain,  the  company  instructed  its 
Captain  (May  2,  1898)  "to  tender  its 
serv^ices  to  the  Commander-in-Chief 
for  such  military  duties  as  the  exigen- 
cies of  the  public  service  may  in  his 
opinion  demand."    It  has  been  repre- 

*  Quoted  in   Lieut.  Thomas  D.   Bradley's  HistorictU 
Sketch  of 'he  Company^  1888. 


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151 


seated  by  members  in  every  war  that 
the  colony,  province,  or  nation  has 
waged.  Soldiers  have  gone  from  its 
ranks  to  command  regiments  and 
companies.  Of  its  members  prior  to 
1866  one  hundred  atid  forty-six 
served  in  the  Civil  War,  while  many 
who  could  not  be  mustered  on  ac- 
count of  age  or  infirmity,  or  who  had 
assumed  official  duties,  had  charge  of 
raising  and  equipping  volunteer 
forces,  caring  for  the  families  of  men 
at  the  front,  or  bringing  home  sick, 
wounded  or  dead,*  In  times  of  peace 
it  has  also  been  prominent.  It  es- 
corted President  Arthur  at  the  cen- 
tennial celebraticm  of  the  birthday  of 
Daniel  Webster  in  1882,  and  again, 
by  assignment  of  Gen.  Sheridan, 
at  the  dedication  of  the  Washington 
monument  in  1885.  It  escorted  the 
Governor  of  the  Commonwealth  to 
camps  at  Concord  in  1859  ^tnd  1870. 
It  conceived  and  carried  through  a 
parade  of  veteran  military  organiza- 
tions at  the  centennial  of  the  Battle  of 
Bunker  Hill,  took  part  in  funeral  ob- 
sequies in  New  Bedford  in  honor  of 
President  Zachary  Taylor,  escorted 
the  city  government  to  lay  the  corner- 
st<Hie  of  the  Scddiers  and  Sailors 
montunent  on  Boston  Common,  par- 
ticipated in  the  centennial  celebra- 
tion of  the  inauguration  of  Wash- 
ington as  President,  and  took  charge 
of  the  Liberty  Bell  when  in  Bos- 
ton this  year.  Its  Fall  Field  Day 
parades  were  originally  made  in 
Boston  and  the  neighboring  towns^ 
with  rifle  practice  as  part  of  the 
exercises,  but  within  the  last  half 
centtuy  they  have  taken  the  form 
of  visits  to  other  states  and  to 
Canada,  Richmond,  Baltimore,  Wash- 


ington, Clevdand,  Montreal  and 
Quebec  being  among  the  cities  "in- 
vaded." In  this  way  it  has  helped 
the  growth  of  fraternal  relations 
between  the  United  States  and 
Canada  and  between  the  north  and 
south. 

To-day  the  Ancient  and  Honor- 
able Artillery  Company  of  Massachu- 
setts— to  give  it  the  official  title — 
has  700  members,  one  of  whom 
joined  in  1850,  and  several  before  the 
Civil  War.  As  in  its  early  years,  it 
has  among  them,  carrying  guns  or 
sabres,  many  officers  of  the  active 
militia — ^the  Commissary  General 
and  two  other  members  of  the  Grov- 
ernor's  staff,  two  colonels  command- 
ing regiments,  two  lieutenatit 
colonels,  five  majors,  and  a  large 
number  of  captains  and  lieutenants. 
It  also  has  as  members  nwiny  vet- 
erans of  the  Civil  Wlar,  two  members 
of  the  last  Congress,  three  members 
of  the  present  Congress,  and  many 
well-known  professional  and  business 
men.  This  record  is  not  by  any 
means  exceptional.  Names  of  pub- 
lic men  have  been  included  in  its  rolls 
in  years  gone  by,  as,  for  instance, 
Hon.  Robert  C.  Winithrop,  Gen. 
Caleb  Gushing,  Gen.  Nathaniel  P. 
Banks,  Gen.  Benjamin  F.  Butler, 
Gen.  John  M.  Corse,  Gov.  Oliver 
Ames,  Oliver  Holden,  the  author  of 
•^Coronation,"  and  Henry  K.  Oliver, 
author  of  "Federal  Street."  Boston 
witnessed  the  curious  spectacle  of 
Gov.  Ames,  then  a  private,  commis- 
sioning the  officers  who  had  been 
elected  "on  a  drum  head  on  the  Com- 
mon.   There     are     two     honorary 


•Roberu's   History  4if  tJu   Ancient  and  H^narabU 
ArtilUry  Company, 


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members, — King  Edward  VII,  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  Hon. 
John  D.  Long,  ex- Governor  of  the 
Commonwealth,  ex-Secretary  of  the 
Navy.  Presidents  Monroe  and  Ar- 
thur were  also  honorary  members. 
At  one  time  members  of  more  than 
twenty  years  standing  were  relieved 
of  assessments  unless  they  paraded, 
atid  were  classed  as  "honorary" ;  now 
members  of  more  than  twenty-five 
years  standing  are  rdieved  of  assess- 
ments unless  they  parade,  but  are  still 
classed  as  "active,"  the  "honorary" 
roll  being  jealously  guarded.  The 
company  parades  in  two  wings,  in- 
fantry and  artillery,  the  infantry  car- 
rying rifles  and  the  artillery  sabres. 
Each  wing  is  divided  into  single 
rank  companies  of  12  or  14  files 
front,  with  right  and  left  guides. 
The  Captain  is  attended  by  "flank- 
ers." Modem  tax:tk:s  are  used,  the 
change  from  "Upton"  having  been 
made  seven  years  ago.  The  Captain 
this  year  is  Col.  Sidney  M.  Hedges, 
formerly  of  the  First  Battalion  of 
Light  Artillery  and  later  of  Gov. 
Brackett's  staff,  who  commanded 
the  company  in  1894.  The  First 
Lieutenant  is  Col.  William  H.  Oakcs 
of  the  Fifth  Massachusetts  Infantry; 
the  Second  Lieutenant  John  D. 
Nichols,  who  previously  served  as  a 
sergeant  and  last  year  carried  the 
State  color;  the  Adjutant,  Colonel 
Charles  K.  Darling  of  the  Sixth 
Massachusetts  Infantry.  The  Ser- 
geant-Major is  Major  George  F. 
Quinby  of  the  First  Massachusetts 
Heavy  Artillery. 

The  uniform  is  chiefly  remarkable 
for  its  non-uniformity,  a  fact  which 
excites  surprise  in  other  American  or 


Canadian  cities.  This  has  been  the 
case  for  eighty  years  or  more.  In 
1738  a  scarlet  coat,  crimson  silk 
stockings,  and  a  cocked  hat  trimmed 
with  gold  lace,  were  worn.  The  red 
coat  was  changed  to  a  blue  one  in 
1756,  and  in  1787  buff  waistcoat  and 
breeches  were  adopted.  Those  *were 
the  days  of  clubbed  or  queued  hair, 
and  of  ruffled  shirts.  In  1810  the 
uniform  had  become  a  chapeau  de 
bras  with  full  black  plume,  blue  coat, 
with  red  facings  and  white  linings, 
white  Marseilles  waistcoat,  small 
clothes  of  fine  white  cassimere,  white 
stock,  gaiters,  black  velvet  knee  strap 
with  white  buckle.  Long  hair  was 
to  be  braided  and  turned  up  and  the 
whole  to  wear  powder. 

In  1820  non-uniformity  began. 
The  company  had  run  down. 
Measures  to  increase  the  membership 
were  imperative.  To  popularize  the 
enlistment  of  officers  of  the  militia 
they  were  allowed  to  wear  their  mil- 
itia uniforms  in  the  ranks  of  the 
company.  With  this  radical  ban- 
ning, modifications  came  rapidly. 
In  1822  members  whQ  had  not  been 
commissioned  in  tlie  army  or  militia 
were  authorized  to  wear  the  uniform 
of  their  local  infantry  regiments. 
Every  one  was  obliged  to  wear  a 
chevron  of  silver  lace  to  denote  his 
membership.  In  1828  private  citi- 
zens joining  the  company  were  al- 
lowed to  wear,  on  the  anniversary, 
white  pantaloons  and  vest,  black 
stock,  hat  with  cockade,  and  black 
or  blue  coat.  This  was  changed  in 
1871,  when  members  who  had  held 
army  or  militia  commissions  were 
only  allowed  to  wear  their  own  uni- 
forms  in    the    infantry    wing,   while 


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black  pantaloons,  black  frock  coat 
and  chapeau,  were  designated  for  the 
artillery  wing.  This  was  the  way  in 
which  the  company  paraded  within 
the  memory  of  many  of  its  members 
of  to-day,  the  infantry  wing  as  a  bou- 
quet of  many  colors,  the  artillery 
wing  in  citizen's  dress  and  military 
headgear.  A  uniform  patterned  after 
that  of  the  Navy  of  1849  was  adopted 
for  the  artillerymen  in  1883,  and 
was  worn  for  a!  dozen  years.  A 
uniform  of  black  coat  and  trousers, 
with  red  facings,  was  adopted  in  1890 
for  infantrymen  who  were  not  enti- 
tled to  wesar  the  uniform  of  another 
corps. 

Members  entitled  to  wear  distinc- 
tive uniforms  were  proud  of  the 
privilege.  Nothing  pleased  the  war 
veteran,  the  militia  oflScer,  or  the  of- 
ficer of  an  organization  disbanded  or 
merged  in  another,  more  than  to 
wear  his  own  individual  uniform  in 
the  ranks  of  the  company.  It  was 
felt  in  1896,  however,  that  England, 
a  military  nation,  would  not  under- 
stand this  custom,  and  a  imiform 
patterned  after  that  of  the  United 
States  Artillery  was  adopted  for  the 
visit  which  was  made  at  that  time.  It 
came  into  general  use  in  the  artillery 
wing,  although  a  few  of  the  artillery 
uniforms  of  1883  ^^e  still  worn.  Con- 
sequently there  appear  to-day  in  the 
ranks  uniforms  of  the  styles  adopted 
in  1883,  1890  and  1896,  in  addi- 
tion to  the  army  and  militia  tmiforms 
of  to-day  and  of  days  gone  by.  This 
confusion  may  seem  worse  confound- 
ed for  the  next  few  years,  for  in  1902 
a  new  uniform,  designed  to  supersede 
all  others  save  those  allowed  by  the 
express    exemption    of    1820,    was 


adopted.  It  is  an  elaboration  of 
that  which  was  worn  to  London,  and 
new  members  not  entitled  to  any 
other  must  wear  it  on  parade.  In  a 
few  years  part  of  the  variety  will  dis- 
appear, atid  there  will  be  in  the  ranks 
only  the  uniform  of  1902  and  the  uni- 
forms of  other  organizations  which 
members  can  legally  wear. 

The  company  has  been  careful  to 
adhere  very  closely  to  all  its  old  cus- 
toms. In  this  respect  it  has  been 
more  conservative  than  its  parent. 
The  Captain  still  wears  the  gorget, 
although  its  use  has  been  discontin^ 
ued  in  London.  Commissioned  of- 
ficers still  carry  espontoons  and 
sergeants  halberds.  Originally,  the 
English  company  elected  a  preacher 
each  year  to  preach  a  sermon  on  elec- 
tion day;  and  after  attending  church 
the  company  held  a  feast,  and  then 
elected  chiefs  and  ofiicers  for  the  en- 
suing year.  The  annual  election,  of 
preachers  has  been  abandoned  in 
London;  the  captains  of  the  com- 
pany choose  them  in  Boston.  The 
**election  of  officers"  is  continued  by 
the  Boston  company.  Officers  of 
the  English  company  are  chosen 
by  the  Crown.  At  one  time  they 
were  chosen  by  the  Lord  Mayor 
and  Court  of  Aldermen  of  London. 
Charles  I,  "being  vnwilling  that  a 
Societie  of  soe  good  vse  vnto  the 
publique  and  of  so  much  safetie  & 
honor  to  our  renowned  Citie  of  Lon- 
don should  be  dissolved  or  discontin- 
ued as  we  are  given  to  vnderstand  it 
is  in  great  dangeir  through  some 
distractions  wch  yow  have  lately 
suflEered  about  the  Election  of  yo' 
Captaine,"  warned  it  "not  to  be  has- 
tie  to  disband  but  if  ye  find  that  ye 


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arc  molested  needlessly  or  vniustly 
by  any  then  have  recourse  to  vs  and 
you  shall  find  such  due  encourage- 
n*ent  as  soe  comendable  a  Societie 
deserves."  Six  weeks  later  he  took 
into  his  own  hands  the  choice  of  the 
Captain.  Charles  II  and  Ja:mes  II 
suspended  elections  for  several  years. 
*'Wee  are  well  satisfyed  of  ye  Loyalty 
and  abilities  of  ye  present  officers 
Employed  in  ye  Artillery  Company," 
wrote  King  Charles  in  1681,  "and  are 
therefore  willing,  out  of  Our  con- 
ceme,  and  care,  for  ye  good  Govern- 
mt  thereof,  that  noe  alteracon  or 
change  bee  made  therein,  by  remov- 
ing any  of  them  out  of  there  Employ- 
mts,  or  Introducing  any  others." 
He  allowed  the  Court  of  Assistants, 
the  governing  body,  to  fill  vacancies, 
however,  and  in  1682  gave  it  author- 
ity to  remove  atiy  officer  that  it  saw 
fit.  Various  changes  were  made  in 
regard  to  the  officers  by  succeeding 
sovereigns,  until  in  1842  the  choice 
of  field  officers  and  adjutant,  and  in 
1849  the  choice  of  company  and  sub- 
altern officers,  was  vested  in  the 
Crown. 

Friendly  relations  between  the  two 
organizations  begans  in  1857,  when 
so  little  was  known  of  each  by  the 
other  that  Colonel  Marshall  P.  Wild- 
er, then  Captain  of  tli-e  Boston  com- 
pany, wrote  of  the  London  company 
as  "The  Royal  Artillery."  Communi- 
cation was  opened,  and  histories, 
etc.,  were  exchanged.  At  the  ban- 
quet in  Faneuil  Hall  in  that  year  the 
Prince  Consort,  Captain  General 
and  Colonel  of  the  Honourable  Ar- 
tillery Company,  was  elected  an  hon- 
orary member  of  the  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Artillery  Company.    The 


interchange  of  courtesies  gradually 
merged  into  a  regular  correspcmd- 
ence  between  London  and  Boston,  the 
correspondence  being  supplemented 
by  occasional  visits  of  members 
of  one  company  to  the  military  home 
of  the  other,  and  by  gifts  of  photo- 
graphs and  books.  The  Prince 
Consort  died  in  i860,  and  in  1878  his 
son,  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who  had 
succeeded  to  the  command  of  the 
Honourable  Artillery  Compatiy,  was 
elected  an  honorary  member  of  the 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery 
Company,  and  wrote,  through  his 
private  secretary,  that  it  afiforded  him 
*'great  pleasure  to  join  so  ancient  and 
distinguished  a  corps."  In  1887 
eleven  members  of  the  Boston  com- 
pany joined  in  celebrating  the  three 
hundred  and  fiftieth  anniversary  of 
the  London  company,  and  were 
given  an  exceedingly  cordial  wel- 
come. In  1888  twenty-one  mem- 
bers of  the  London  company  helped 
the  Boston  company  to  celebrate 
its  two  hundred  and  fiftieth  anni- 
versary. They  were  shown  Wash- 
ington, Gettysburg,  and  West  Point, 
and  were  entertained  in  and  around 
Boston. 

These  letters  and  visits  were  pre- 
liminary to  the  great  exhibition  of 
fraternal  feeling  which  took  place 
seven  years  ago.  The  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Artillery  Company  began 
arrangements  in  1895^  through  a 
committee  of  which  Q>lonel  Hedges 
was  chairman,  for  spending  a  week 
in  London  in  1896  as  a  military 
body,  and  two  weeks  upon  the  Euro- 
pean continent  as  a  group  of  tourists. 
This  it  did  upon  its  own  initiative, 
not  upon  the  invitation  of  the  Hon- 


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155 


ourable  Artillery  Company.  While 
it  thought  that  its  presence  in  London 
might  be  rea^^ized  by  an  escort  and 
possibly  a  banquet,  it  anticipated 
nothing  more.  The  Honourable 
Artillery  Company  was  unwilling, 
however,  to  let  the  occasion  pass 
without  extending  lavish  hospitality. 
Meanwhile,  the  Venezuelan  question 
arose,  prompting  Americans  and 
English  to  ask  if  it  were  possible  that 
the  two  countries  would  engage  in 
fratricidal  strife.  It  was  still  under 
consideration  when  the  Ancient  and 
Honorable  Artillery  Company,  170 
strong,  the  first  American  orgfaniz- 
ation  ever  permitted  to  enter  Enghmd 
armed  and  equipped  as  a  military 
body,  reached  London.  The  pres- 
ence of  the  organization  at  that  time 
assumed  unexpected  significance. 
The  English  government  assisted  in 
welcoming  it.  Queen  Victoria  re- 
viewed and  entertained  it  at  Windsor 
Carstle.  "I  trust  you  have  had  a 
pleasant  voyage  across  and  I  am  glad 
to  see  you  here/'  she  said  to  Col. 
Henry  Walker,  when  he  and  Adju- 
tant Duchesney  were  presented  to  her. 
The  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales 
(now  King  and  Queen)  reviewed  and 
entertained  it  at  Marlborough  House. 
A  sham  fight  and  review  of  English 
troops  at  Aldershot,  a  collation  at  the 
Officers  Qub,  provided  by  order  of 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  War,  a 
dinner  at  the  Royal  Artillery  Mess, 
Woolwich,  a  review  of  the  Honour- 
able Artillery  Company  and  a  dinner 
which  that  company  gfave  also  formed 
part  of  the  entertainment.  Taken  as 
a  whole,  the  reception  by  government 
and  people  was  one  seldom  given  to 
any  but  European  crowned  heads. 


Naturally  the  Ancient  and  Honor- 
able Artillery  Company  has  been 
anxious  to  repay,  in  its  distinctly 
American  fashion,  the  hospitality  thus 
showered  upon  it.  In  1898  it  invited 
the  Honourable  Artillery  Company 
to  visit  Boston  in  1900.  The  invita- 
tion was  accepted,  with  the  "hope 
that  these  interchanges  of  visits  and 
social  atnenities  may  be  abundantly 
fruitful  in  cementing  for  all  time  the 
British  and  American  people  in  the 
bonds  of  concord  and  happiness." 
Arrangements  were  made  for  etiter- 
taining  the  English  soldiers  in  Bos- 
ton and  for  showing  them  other  parts 
of  the  country ;  but  early  in  1900  the 
visit  was  postponed  "in  view  of  the 
war  in  South  Africa,  the  number  of 
members  of  the  Battery  and  Infantry 
proceeding  to  the  front,  and  the  prob- 
ability that  the  regiment  may  be  fur- 
ther called  upon  for  duty."  Sept.  6, 
1901,  the  invitation  was  renewed,  and 
was  accepted  for  the  fall  of  1903, 
with  the  proviso  that  the  absence 
from  England  must  not  exceed  thirty- 
one  days. 

The  visiting  members  of  the  Hon- 
ourable Artillery  Company  will 
number  about  175,  and  will  represent 
both  artillery  and  infantry.  They 
expect  to  reach  Boston  upon  the 
steamship  "Mayflower"  of  the  Do- 
minion Line  on  Friday,  October  2, 
and  to  remain  in  America  until 
Thursday,  October  15.  From  the 
wharf  in  Charlestown  they  will  be 
escorted  past  the  Bunker  Hill  Monu- 
ment to  their  hotels  in  the  city  by  the 
Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery 
Company  and  a  brilliant  escort  of 
Massachusetts  militia,  several  organ- 
izations having  already  tendered  their 


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RETURN     OF  THE   BRITISH 


services.  Upon  the  evening  after 
their  arrival  the  Ancient  and  Hon- 
orable Artillery  Company  will  wel- 
come them  to  its  military  home 
in  Faneuil  Hall,  and  make  their 
acquaintance  individually.  Saturday, 
October  3,  the  two  companies  will 
visit  Providence  as  the  guests  of  the 
First  Light  Infatitry  of  that  city. 
Sunday,  October  4,  a  church  parade 
will  take  place  in  the  afternoon  under 
the  auspices  of  a  committee  of  100 
British  residents,  the  service  being  at 
Trinity  Church.  Monday,  Octobers, 
the  two  hundred  and  sixty-sixth  Fall 
Field  Day  of  the  Boston  company,  a 
parade  and  a  harbor  excursion  will 
be  followed  by  a  reception  in  Horti- 
cultural Hall  and  a  banquet  in 
Symphony  Hall;  the  banquet  to  be 
one  which  will  be  memorable  in  the 
military  history  of  the  country. 
Tuesday,  October  6,  a  delegation  of 
the  Ancient  and  Honorable  Artillery 
Company  will  take  the  Honourable 
Artillery  Company  on  a  week's  tour 
of  sight  seeing,  including  visits  to  the 
following  places:  West  Point,  where 
a  review  of  the  Cadet  Battalion  will 
be  tendered;  New  York,  where  the 
Old  Guard  will  give  a  banquet  and 
show  other  courtesies;  Washington, 
where  Prelsident  Roosevelt  will  re- 
ceive the  soldiers  of  the  King; 
Niagara  Falls;  Montreal,  where  a 
trip  over  the  Lachine  Rapids, 
a  luncheon  given  by  the  city, 
carriage  drives  and  an  evening 
"smoker"  will  probably  be  the  attrac- 
tions. Returning  to  Boston  late  on 
Tuesday  evening,  the  Honourable  Ar- 
tillery Company  will  be  entertained 
at  the  Country  Club,  Brookline,  by 
the  Victorian  Club,  on  Wednesday, 


October  14,  and  will  give  a  farewell 
banquet  at  the  Hotel  Somerset  that 
evening. 

In  outlining  arrangements  for  re- 
ception and  entertainment  the  inten- 
tion has  been  to  show  the  Englishmen 
both  what  it  was  fdt  that  they  would 
desire  to  see,  and  what  Americans 
would  wish  them  to  see.  Care  at  the 
same  time  has  been  taken  to  allow 
opportunities  for  individual  sight  see- 
ing and  entertaining.  Courtesies 
have  bee^  extended  generously. 
President  Roosevelt,  while  unable  to 
come  to  Boston  to  attend  either  of  the 
banquets,  has  offered  to  assist  in  any 
other  way  that  he  can.  The  State  and 
Treasury  Departments  have  co-oper- 
ated in  extending  courtesies  at  the 
Custom  House.  The  War  Depart- 
ment, in  addition  to  tendering  a  re- 
view of  the  Cadet  Battalion  and 
promising  a  cavalry  escort  in  Wash- 
ington, has  arranged  that  the  twen- 
tieth century  "Mayflower"  shall  be 
saluted  by  the  forts  upon  entering  the 
harbor.  At  the  time  of  writing 
strong  hope  is  felt  by  the  Committee 
of  Arrangements,  of  which  Colonel 
Hedges  is  Chairman,  that  American 
and  British  war  ships  will  take  part  in 
the  reception.  Cities,  military  or- 
ganizations, societies,  business 
houses,  all  have  joined  in  extending 
a  welcoming  hand,  the  invitations 
they  gave  being  much  more|  numer- 
ous than  could  possibly  be  accepted. 
They  point  to  the  response  of  the 
people  of  America  to  King  Edward's 
welcome,  when  Prince  of  Wales,  to 
the  Boston  company  at  Marlborough 
House,  "We  have  not  received  you 
as  foreigners,  but  as  those  who  are 
belonging  to  ourselves." 


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Uncle  Jacob 

By  Sliot  Walker 


TIE  elements  of  concord 
had  once  more  settled 
upon  the  house  of  Cob- 
bins.  Not  that  dispute  or 
argument  or  misunderstanding  had 
ever  prevailed  during  the  long  mat- 
rimonial career  of  Reuben  and 
Sarah,  for  they  had  always  borne 
each  other's  burdens  and  shared 
each  other's  joys  in  a  highly  com- 
mendable manner,  as  their  neigh- 
bors could  testify.  Only,  as  the 
bald  pate  of  the  husband  became 
balder  over  the  worry  of  declining 
years  and  fortune,  and  the  gray 
knob  at  the  back  of  Sarah's  head 
took  less  and  less  time  to  twist,  did 
they  arrive  at  a  sad  and  simultaneous 
conclusion — "things  had  not  come  out 
as  they  had  expected." 

It  began  with  an  almost  imper- 
ceptible chill  and  terminated  in  a 
screech  of  hot  condemnation  on  the 
part  of  Sarah,  and  an  equally  warm 
burst  of  wrath  from  Reuben,  some- 
what sulphurous,  alas  I  albeit  he 
was  sitting  on  the  refrigerator  in 
the  milk  room — a  cool,  pure  and 
peaceful  spot,  entirely  unsuited  for 
the  breaking  out  of  pent-up  feeling. 
Not  to  drag  forth  for  public  con- 
tumely the  details  of  that  disastrous 
five-minute  conversation,  it  may  be 
summarized  as  loud,  bitter  and  re- 
criminating, with  these  parting  in- 
sults— "that  Reuben  wa'n't  no  man- 
ager, anyhow,  and  it  was  all  his 
fault  if  the  farm  couldn't  give  'em  a 


decent  livin',"  and  "that  Sarah  Cob- 
bins  would  'poverish  any  man,  giv- 
in'  good  food  to  tramps  an'  bein'  a 
wasteful,  uneconermizin'  woman." 

Evil  lies,  these,  and  they  both 
knew  it,  but  parted  with  that  sullen 
obstinacy  characteristic  of  those 
whose  tongues  have  wronged  their 
hearts,  but  will  take  no  step  toward 
conciliation.  Reuben  stormed  to 
the  barn  with  irate  mutterings. 
Sarah  to  the  attic  to  noisily  drag 
about  the  heaviest  articles  her  thin 
hands  could  displace,  pausing,  when 
exhausted,  to  sit  on  her  dingy  wed- 
ding trunk  and  weep. 

Ten  days  crept  along  with  a  polite 
acidity  of  only  necessary  questions 
and  replies,  and  their  eyes  scarcely 
met.  The  atmosphere  was  extreme- 
ly uncomfortable.  Both  slaved  be- 
yond their  strength,  with  sealed, 
determined  lips,  and  wondered  dim- 
ly if  this  state  was  to  always  endure. 
Indeed  it  might  have  but  for  a  turn 
of  fortune's  wheel. 

They  had  lately  heard  rumors  of 
a  queer  old  man,  stopping  at  the 
village  tavern,  a  mile  from  their 
farm.  Nothing  very  definite  in  this, 
but  interesting  as  a  bit  of  news,  for 
he  had  declared  an  intention  of  abid- 
ing at  Ashford  indefinitely,  if  a  sat- 
isfactory place  could  be  found  well 
away  from  the  straggle  of  buildings 
constituting  the  mart  of  the  country 
hamlet.  Beyond  this,  reticence 
marked  his  speech,  but  he  was  re- 


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UNCLE   JACOB 


ported  to  be  of  prosperous  mien, 
and  given  to  strolling,  uninvited, 
over  people's  premises,  with  an  eye 
to  settling  himself,  could  he  find 
congenial  surroundings  and  make  ar- 
rangements. As  yet  he  was  still  at 
the  tavern,  although  some  advan- 
tageous oflfers  had  been  held  forth 
by  sundry  farmers  not  averse  to 
making  themselves  uncomfortable 
for  the  sake  of  hospitality  and,  inci- 
dentally, board  money.  However, 
this  did  not  appeal  to  the  Cobbins, 
except  to  excite  curiosity  as  to  his 
probable  settlement.  No  one  would 
care  to  live  under  their  roof,  espe- 
cially with  the  present  unhappy  con- 
ditions. 

So,  one  warm  July  morning,  Sa- 
rah, repairing  to  the  hen  house  with 
a  pan  of  scraps,  was  much  surprised 
and  a  trifle  irritated  to  observe  a 
rotund  figure  standing  in  rapt  con- 
templation of  the  unattractive 
meadow  which  lay  unevenly  behind 
her  domicile.  Mrs.  Cobbins'  nerves 
being  at  the  breaking  point,  it  was 
a  relief  to  call  sharply:  "Hey I  No 
trespassin'  on  this  prop'tyl" 

The  stranger  turned,  lifted  his 
wide  brimmed  straw  hat,  bowed 
most  profoundly  and  advanced  with 
a  beaming  smile. 

"It's  thet  old  feller  we've  heard 
of,"  thought  Sarah,  softening  at 
sight  of  the  benign  countenance. 
"My!  he's  quite  a  gentleman,  ain't 
he?" 

"Madam,"  observed  the  intruder, 
"it  is  the  place." 

"What  place?"  returned  Mrs. 
Cobbins  with  severity,  deeming  the 
remark  unintelligent. 

"The  place  I  select,"  said  the  old 
man  calmly.    "This  afternoon  I  will 


come  with  my  trunks.  They  arc  at 
the  inn.  Ten  dollars  I  will  pay  by 
the  week  in  advance.  My  needs  are 
few.  I  am  a  simple  man.  A  small 
room,  a  bed,  a  bit  of  bread  and  much 
milk.    It  is  a  bargain?    Yes?" 

Sarah  dropped  the  pan  of  scraps, 
staring,  with  an  open  mouth  and 
distended  orbs. 

"You  comer  she  gasped.  *'I'U 
take  yer.    Yes,  sir !" 

A  minute  later  she  was  crying 
hard  in  the  kitchen,  watching  with 
flooded  eyes  the  still  active  form 
marching  down  the  road. 

"Ten  dollars  a  week !  Oh,  Lordy ! 
Lordy  I  An'  us  a  skinnin*  along  on 
nothin'  for  ever  so  long.  He  kin 
have  the  spare  room.  I'll  fix  it  up 
nice  for  him — an'  what  he  don't 
want  I  can't  git— thet's  all.  Ten 
dollars  a  week  I" 

Still  sobbing  with  joy,  she  ran 
out  and  across  the  garden  to  the 
onion  patch,  where  Reuben,  on  his 
knees,  toiled  painfully  in  the  sun's 
broil,  a  martyr  to  the  fact  that  every 
tiny  weed  counted  now.  He  turned 
a  perspiring,  angry  brow  at  the 
sound  of  footsteps.  "What  ails 
ye?"  he  rasped,  a  little  frightened  at 
the  working  features,  and  rose,  rub- 
bing his  stiffened  spine. 

It  took  but  a  moment  for  the  re- 
lation of  the  glad  tidings.  The 
man's  worn  face  shone  like  a  boy's, 
with  a  quick  smiling  relief,  and  he 
put  out  his  bared,  dirty  arms. 

"Sarah  1"  he  whispered,  "thar 
won't  no  one  see  us.  Let's  start  in 
fresh.  Here  I  Funny  how  them 
blamed  onions  make  a  feller's  eyes 
smart.  Thar!  run  along  now.  I 
mustn't  be  a  huggin'  ye  right  in 
plain    sight    of   the    road.      Besides, 


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UNCLE   JACOB 


159 


I've  got  ter  finish  weedin'  this 
row. 

Never  before  did  Sarah  Cobbins 
labor  as  during  that  forenoon,  and 
when  her  boarder  arrived,  rattling 
up  in  a  job-wagon,  with  two  great 
trunks,  a  bag  and  a  violin  case,  she 
had  no  apology  to  offer  for  the 
clean,  comfortable  chamber  to 
which  he  was  ushered. 

"Supper  at  sixl"  was  her  smart 
announcement,  as  she  swept  down 
the  creaky  stairs,  adding  to  herself: 
"If  he  ain't  made  the  most  comfort- 
able man  in  Ashford,  'twon't  be  no 
fault  of  mine." 

Mildness  personified  was  the  el- 
derly personage,  who  settled  him- 
self complacently  at  the  Cobbins' 
table.  A  profusion  of  snowy  hair 
crowned  a  broad  head,  and  reflect- 
ive eyes  of  a  light  and  gentle  blue, 
peered  from  behind  spectacles  of  un- 
usual size.  His  beard,  long,  wavy 
and  patriarchal,  fell  upon  an  ample 
chest;  his  soft,  fat,  white  hand, 
stroked  a  prominent  nose  of  curving 
contour,  and  he  greeted  Reuben 
with  a  paternal  air  and  as  though 
he  had  known  him  long.  Mr.  Cob- 
bins,  who  was  "slicked  up"  for  the 
occasion,  made  obeisance  in  some 
embarrassment  and  sat  down. 

"We  ain't  never  hed  a  boarder 
afore,"  he  announced.  "You  must 
make  yerself  ter  hum.  Mr. — er — 
my  wife  didn't  git  yer  name.  What'll 
I  call  yer?" 

"Uncle  Jacob,  if  it  pleases  you," 
returned  the  stranger  pleasantly, 
taking  a  huge  swallow  of  milk. 

"Oh !  yes,  that'll  be  quite  fam'ly  like. 
Well  be  glad  ter.  But  yer  last  name?" 

"Schmitzenhausen,"  affably  re- 
plied the  nf  wpomerr 


Sarah  suddenly  spilled  the  tea  she 
was  pouring,  looked  down  and 
rubbed  the  spot  with  her  napkin. 

"I  guess  'Uncle  Jacob'  will  do," 
murmured  Reuben  faintly,  and  a 
long  pause  followed. 

"No  children?"  inquired  the 
boarder  at  last,  sipping  his  milk. 

Cobbins  shook  his  head.  "We 
hed  a  little  one,  but  lost  it,"  he  re- 
plied. 

The  guest  gazed  at  them  sympa- 
thetically. "Achl"  he  croaked  and 
bit  a  crust  of  toast  with  a  rasping 
crunch. 

Finally  he  pushed  back  his  chair. 
"Excellent,  the  milk  and  toasted 
bread,"  he  smiled.  "I  shall  stay, 
with  your  permission,  a  year.  I 
pay  in  advance;  fifty-two  weeks, 
my  friend,  five  hundred  and  twenty 
— ^yes,  herel" 

He  pulled  a  fat  wallet  from  a 
pocket  and  counted  out  a  number 
of  bills,  passed  them  across  to  the 
amazed  Reuben  and  rose  with  a 
gracious  bow.  The  farmer's  knees 
fairly  shook  the  table.  His  wife 
turned  pale. 

"No!  no!"  cried  Cobbins,  "I— I 
can't — it's  robbin'  yer.  'Tain't  fair, 
nor  no  way  ter  do  bizness." 

"Tut!  tutl"  said  Uncle  Jacob 
softly.  "It  is  my  way.  I  am  a  sim- 
ple man,  old  and  forgetful.  I  wish 
not  to  have  trifles  on  my  mind.  At 
your  convenience  a  receipt."  He 
dismissed  all  protests  with  negative 
gestures,  and  went  out,  filling  a 
great  meerschaum  pipe. 

"What'll  I  do,  Sarah?"  asked 
Reuben  tremulously. 

"Take  it.  It's  the  Lord's  will," 
replied  Mrs.  Cobbins  piously.  "If 
he  dies  on  us,  we'll  bury  him  decent. 


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UNCLE   JACOB 


Fix  things  up  an'  get  goin'  ag'in, 
an' — an' — I  need  a  new  dress  an'  a 
bunnit,  Reuben." 

Back  in  the  meadow  where  Uncle 
Jacob  had  been  discovered,  lay  a  de- 
pression damp  even  in  midsummer, 
and  quite  a  pond  in  the  spring  time 
when  the  wash  from  the  little  hills 
beyond  flowed  down  their  rutted 
sides.  'The  Puddle,"  as  Sarah 
dubbed  this  rank,  wet  spot  be- 
hind the  house,  was  an  eyesore  to 
her  cleanly  spirit,  with  its  dirty, 
yellow  bed  and  bordering  growth  of 
weeds  and  swamp  grass.  Long  had 
Reuben  intended  to  fill  up  this 
nuisance,  but  it  proved  one  of  the 
things  he  didn't  "get  to." 

One  night,  a  month  after  the  ad- 
vent of  Uncle  Jacob,  Sarah  made  a 
complaint.  "Reuben,"  she  said, 
"since  thet  last  rain,  seems  ter  me 
them  frogs  an'  toads  hold  regf'lar 
singin'  schools  in  thet  pesky  puddle. 
It's  wuss  than  the  airly  season." 

"I  was  goin'  to  fill  the  thing  up, 
but  Uncle  Jacob  says  'No,' "  replied 
her  spouse  sleepily.  "He's  alius 
ketchin'  bugs  an'  flies  an'  feedin'  the 
toads.  I  believe  the  critters  know 
him." 

"Wal,  if  it  amuses  him,  I  kin 
stand  it.  Did  ye  ever  see  sech  a 
dear  ez  he  is,  Reuben?  Not  a  mite 
of  trouble,  an'  alius  smilin'.  'Pears 
sort  of  childish  et  times,  but  pretty 
smart  fer  his  years.  If  thar's  a  foot 
of  ground  within  three  mile  he  ain't 
tramped,  I'd  like  ter  know  it.  Clean 
over  ter  the  swamp  he  goes  an'  gits 
things  in  his  bag." 

"Go  ter  sleep,"  grunted  Mr.  Cob- 
bins.  "Yes,  Uncle  Jacob's  a  nice 
old  feller  if  he  don't  never  say  much 
in  thet  queer  way  of  his'n.    He  ain't 


what  I  call  a  sociable  man.  Won- 
der what  he's  wuth?" 

Three  days  later,  Reuben  strode 
excitedly  into  the  kitchen. 

"What  d'yer  think?"  he  ex- 
claimed. "Uncle  Jacob's  got  more'n 
a  hundred  frogs  an'  toads  in  The 
Puddle.  He's  be'n  coUectin'  an' 
fattenin'  of  'em  ever  sence  he  come, 
an'  now,  ter  beat  all  ef  he  ain't 
ketched  two  big  black  snakes  which 
hes'  got  in  a  box  ter  eat  'em  up." 

Sarah  sat  down  and  exploded 
with  mirth.  "What'll  he  do  next?" 
she  cried.  "Fust  'twas  bugs  an' 
flies,  then  toads  an'  now  snakes. 
Feedin'  one  inter  another!  He's 
cracked,  surely." 

"An'  when  the  toads  is  all  e't, 
he's  goin'  ter  kill  the  snakes  an' 
stuff  'em  for  curiosities,"  went  on 
Reuben.  "Wal,  let  the  old  man  be, 
he  seems  mighty  pleased." 

In  due  time  the  reptiles  were  exe- 
cuted and  nicely  mounted,  and 
Uncle  Jacob  began  a  collection  of 
spiders;  then  autumn  leaves;  and 
as  the  weather  grew  cold,  an- 
nounced that  he  was  going  away  for 
the  winter.  The  Cobbins  stag- 
gered at  this  proclamation.  They 
had  expended  more  than  half  the 
deposit. 

"I'll  hev  ter  owe  ye,"  said 
Reuben  disconsolately.  "I've  used 
yer  money." 

"Not  mine,"  assured  Uncle  Jacob, 
gesturing  politely,  "I  keep  my  room. 
That  is  enough.  In  April  I  return. 
The  money  is  paid.  Pish!  Non- 
sense !" 

He  was  immovable  and  the  grate- 
ful pair  accepted  his  decision  in  a 
pathos  of  relief. 

"You  gen'rous  man  I    We'll  make 


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UNCLE  JACOB 


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it  up  ter  ye  some  way,"  snuffled 
Sarah,  quite  overcome. 

"By  Goir  was  all  Reuben  could 
say. 

Early  in  November  their  friend 
departed,  baggage  and  all.  And 
not  until  the  first  of  May  did  he 
reappear  for  a  cordial  welcome,  and 
immediately  began  his  tramps. 

"That's  a  couple  of  men  askin' 
fer  yer,  Reuben,"  said  Sarah,  hur- 
rying out  to  the  garden.  "Nice 
dressed  gents  ez  I  ever  see." 

Her  husband,  baking  in  the  June 
sun,  was  glad  of  an  interruption  and 
stalked  up  to  the  cool  of  the  piazza, 
wondering  who  his  callers  could  be. 
He  did  not  return  to  his  work  that 
afternoon,  but  talked  long  and 
earnestly  with  his  wife  in  the  sitting 
room  after  the  visitors  had  gone. 

"Uncle  Jacob,"  he  said,  after  his 
boarder  had  finished  his  bread  and 
milk,  having  returned  later  than 
usual,  "I've  somethin'  ter  say  ter 
ye.     Come  out  by  the  shed." 

The  old  fellow  listened  placidly, 
puffing  at  his  pipe. 

"It  is  well,"  he  remarked  after 
Cobbins  had  ceased  speaking.  "My 
good  friend,  I  should  certainly  sell. 
To  me  it  makes  no  difference.  I 
think  I  should  go  in  July.  Did  you 
name  a  price?" 

"No,  I  didn't.  I  had  ter  figger 
things  up.  It's  clear  prop'ty  sech 
as  it  is.  Thar's'  the  house  an'  bam 
an'  medder  an'  pasture  land  an'  the 
wood  lots  an'  half  the  mount'in.  I 
couldn't  fix  no  sum.  If  'twas  im- 
proved, mebbe  five  thousand  dollars 
would  be  its  wuth.  Would  ye  dare 
ask 'em  thet?" 

"Ach!  Ten  thousand,  my  friend. 
My  good  father  told  me  this :  'Jacob, 


if  a  thing  is  worth  so  much  to  you, 
it  is  worth  twice  that  to  those  who 
wish  to  buy.  Always  ask  double, 
and  stick,'  said  my  good  father  in 
the  Germany,  long  ago." 

"You're  crazy,"  grinned  Reuben. 
"I  couldn't  get  a  cent  over  four 
thousand  dollars  ez  it  stands." 

"Ask  of  them  what  I  say.  It  is 
a  good  property.  Now,  lookl  If 
my  advice  you  follow  and  follow 
well,  I  am  so  sure  of  my  maxim  as 
this:  You  get  that  sum — ^you  give  to 
me  five  hundred  and  twenty  dollars 
— ^what  I  have  paid  you.  You  do 
not  get  that  much,  you  pay  me 
nothing.  Ha !  it  is  a  chance  for  the 
old  man.  Hem!  My  commission 
for  this  excellent  advice.     See?" 

He  rubbed  his  fat  hands  and 
chuckled  mirthfully. 

"It's  ridiculous,  but  I  swan  I'll 
try  the  bluff  ter  please  ye, — ^jest  fer 
yer  goodness.  They're  comin'  ag'in 
termorrer.  I  ain't  so  perticler  about 
sellin',  anyway,  an'  I'll  mebbe  git  a 
deal  more  fer  stickin'  on  a  big  fig- 
ger.   Come,  let's  go  in." 

"One  word,"  said  Uncle  Jacob, 
solemnly.  "We  will  not  tell  the 
good  lady." 

"All  right,"  assented  Reuben. 
"It'll  be  jest  atween  us." 

The  next  morning  Uncle  Jacob 
was  off  betimes,  and  did  not  turn 
up  until  night,  but  this  was  nothing 
unusual.  The  Cobbins  met  him 
with  beams  of  welcome.  "I'm  ter 
git  nine  thousand,  four  hundred  and 
eighty  dollars  fer  the  place,"  said 
Reuben  loudly,  with  a  wink.  "They 
give  me  a  thousand  down  ter  bind 
it.  When  ev'rything's  settled  me 
and  wife  is  goin'  ter  Californy  ter 
visit    my   brother    an'    p'raps    stay 


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THE  POLE  IN  THE  LAND 


thar*.  Can't  telL  Bein'  so  set  up, 
we  ain't  decided  on  nothin'.  Say, 
thar's  a  leetle  package  in  yer  room. 
Uncle  Jacob.  A  feller  left  it  for 
ye.  What!  Ye  think  ye'll  leave 
this  week.  Wal !  it'll  be  hard  sayin' 
*Good-bye.'  But  mebbe  'twon't  be 
so  comfortable  fer  ye  with  them 
folks  comin'  an'  goin'.  We'll  never 
fergit  ye,  never." 

A  year  later,  Reuben  Cobbins, 
thriving  upon  the  Pacific  slope, 
picked  up  an  Eastern  paper.  A 
familiar  name  caught  his  eye  and 
he  read  with  amazement: 


"The  Ashford  ochre  beds,  now  splen- 
didly developed,  have  been  bought  by  a 
syndicate  for  one  hundred  thousand  dol- 
lars. This  fine  property  was  discovered 
by  Professor  Jacob  Schmitzenhausen,  the 
expert,  and  the  price  paid  to  the  original 
owner  is  said  to  have  been  ten  thousand 
dollars." 

"Here,  Sarah!"  yelled  Reuben. 
"Readthetr 

Sarah  read  it  blankly.  "Thet's 
wrong,"  said  she.  "You  told  me 
you  got  nine  thousand,  four  hundred 
and  eighty  dollars." 

"Thet's  all  I  did  git,"  returned 
her  husband,  loyally. 


The  Pole  in  the  Land  of  the  Puritan 


By  Edward  Kirk  Titus 


I 


T'S  about  time  that  the  Irish  and 
the  French  and  the  Yankees 
lined  up  against  these  Poland- 
ers." 
So  spoke  an  Irish-American  leader 
in  Western  Massachusetts,  suggesting 
the  interest  and  uneasiness  awakened 
in  the  Connecticut  river  valley  by  the 
rapidly  increasing  Polish  colony. 
Alien  in  thought,  grotesque  in  man- 
ner of  life,  the  thrifty  and  laborious 
Pole  is  a  conspicuous  figure  in  this  old 
Puritan  community,  and  his  prospec- 
tive effect  upon  social  and  political 
conditions  is  the  subject  of  solicitous 
inquiry.  Slow  to  learn  even  simple 
English,    unable    to    express    in   our 


tongue  any  abstract  ideas,  one  can 
only  conjecture  his  inner  life  and 
mental  attitude.  His  part  in  the 
drama  of  conflicting  races  has  thus  a 
silent,  pantomimic  effect.  It  is  not 
lacking  in  sinister  suggestion. 

In  the  smiling  country  along  the 
Connecticut  river  and  included  with- 
in Massachusetts,  there  was  three  de- 
cades ago  possibly  the  most  distinc- 
tive survival  of  early  New  England 
Puritan  life.  The  first  Poles  came  in 
the  early  eighties ;  many  of  them  were 
attracted  by  glowing  reports  of  re- 
turning Jews,  who  told  of  a  land  of 
boundless  freedom  and  countless  dol- 
lars.    Soon  the  descendants    of    the 


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OF  THE   PURITAN 


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Pynchons  and  the  Chapins  were  mar- 
velling at  the    expressionless    Slavic 
faces,   which   Icxdced   as   if  flattened 
against  a  board  at  birth;  at  stunted 
figures  that  bespoke  grinding  toil ;  at 
the  masculine  forms  of  the  women,  that 
told  of  field-work  beside  brother  and 
husband  and   domestic  animal.     To- 
day the  Polish  tide,  swelled  by  con- 
tinuous    immigration     and     prolific 
births,  is  steadily  rising  in  this  old 
Yankee  community.     The  Massachu- 
setts section  of  the  valley  is  the  home 
of  twelve  to  fifteen  thousand  of  these 
aliens.      The    change  is  particularly 
striking     m     little     farming     towns. 
You    can    find    colonial    dwellings 
whose  ample  halls  suggest  the  broad- 
ening atmosphere  of  the  English  coun- 
try   home,    whose    traces    of    Greek 
architecture  hint  at  an  outlook  into 
finer  and  more  spiritual  aspects  of  life, 
that  are  to-day  Polish  boarding-houses, 
with  beds  rented  at  twenty-five  cents 
a  week.     Walls  that  once  heard  the 
agonizing   prayer    of    some    Puritan 
Ebenezer   or    Nehemiah  to  his  aloof 
and  angry  God,  now  ring  with  Polish 
revels.      Here   sounds  the  phraseless 
and  tuneless  strain  of  the  fiddle  and 
two-string     'cello,     while     Wojdech 
Krzystyniak,  having  paid  his  dime,  is 
dancing  with  the  bride,  pufiing  in  her 
face  the  cheap  cigar  given  as  premium 
with  his  blushing  partner;  and  in  the 
backgrotmd    are    lurking   the   disap- 
pointed  rivals   whose  vengeful   pur- 
pose will  providte  the  usual  denoue- 
ment for  the  morning's  police  court. 
Chicopee  is  the  Slavic  capital  of  the 
valley — ^an  old  Yankee  town  that  once 
worked  and  slept  at  command  of  the 
Congr^;ational   church   bell— now   a 
cotton  manufacturing  city  cosmopoli- 
tan in  origin    and    one-third  Polish. 


Yankees,  Irishmen  and  Frenchmen 
have  in  turn  tended  the  looms,  but 
to-day  the  Poles  crowd  the  mills.  In 
one  school  where  once  only  Yankee 
children  were  learning  the  three  Rs, 
now  all  but  four  attendants  are  of 
foreign  parentage,  mostly  of  Polish 
origin.  In  quarters  once  American, 
later  Irish  or  French,  the  overflowing 
Polish  tenements  suggest  the  New 
York  East  Side,  and  their  resistless 
spread  alarms  the  remnant  of  the 
Puritan  community.  With  the  rise  of 
this  obliterating  tide,  amusement  at 
outlandish  customs  begins  to  give  way 
to  solicitude  for  social  and  economic 
results.  Iti  Indian  Orchard  the  other 
day,  a  hundred  men,  women  and 
children  struck  because  twoinoflfensive 
looking  Poles  had  been  given  work. 
In  Sunderland  where  several  dwell- 
ings associated  with  old  village  fam- 
ilies have  been  acquired  by  these 
aliens,  the  leading  men  have  agreed 
upon  a  plan  of  campaign  to  keep  the 
old  houses  out  of  their  hands. 

In  forecasting  the  future  of  the 
Pole  in  the  land  of  the  Puritan,  re- 
member that  although  the  two  race 
types  seem  antipodal,  the  former  pos- 
sesses in  marked  degree  physical  en- 
durance, industry,  frugality — qualities 
very  largely  contributory  to  the  mate- 
rial success  of  the  latter  in  his  original 
role  as  pioneer.  Pinching  economy 
and  tireless  industry  make  the  Pole's 
slouchy  figure  and  brutish  face  famil- 
iar at  the  savings  bank,  and  although 
he  may  look  like  a  tramp,  he  can  draw 
from  his  greasy  pocket  a  bankbook 
showing  a  fat  deposit.  Unmarried 
men  live  on  a  dollar  a  week.  They 
hang  about  the  butchers'  shops  like 
hungry  dogs,  and  eagerly  snap  at 
some  dusty  or  tainted  neck  or  flank 

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THE  POLE   IN   THE   LAND 


offered    for    two    or    three    cents    a 
pound.     Properly  tagged  for  identifi- 
cation, this  acquisition  is  thrown  with 
pieces  belonging  to  other  boarders  in- 
to the  common  pot  on  the  boarding- 
house    stove.     On   such   meat,   with 
milk,  coffee,  rye  bread,  and  a  bowl  of 
grease  for  butter,  the  Pole  thrives,  and 
his    round   cheeks   contrast  with  the 
hatchet    face    of    the    Yankee    who 
bought  the  best  cuts  of  beef.    The  his- 
tory of  Wawrzeniec  Gwozdz  is  t)rpical. 
He  saved  in  three  years  $450  from  his 
twenty  dollars  a  month  and  board  as 
farm  laborer.    Meanwhile  his  fiancee 
had  accvunulated  $350  from  her  three 
dollars  and  a  half  a  week  as  house- 
maid.   The  two  little  hoards  bought  a 
run-down    farm    that    no     American 
would    cultivate.     Wawrzeniec    toils 
from  starlight  to  starlight,  and  is  now 
planning  to  get  a  barn  for  a  hundred 
dollars  by  hewing  out  the  timbers  by 
hand.     As  domestic,  his  wife's  slash- 
ing industry  rapidly  transferred  china 
from  the  dining-room  to  the  dump- 
heap  ;  but  since  marriage  her  physical 
exuberance  has  found  vent  in  wielding 
the   hoe.     Week-days   both   summer 
and  winter  she  and  the  children  will 
go  barefoot.     In  a  decade,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Gwozdz  will  be  as  prosperous  as 
their   Yankee   neighbors.     Either   as 
farm  hand  or  land  owner,  the  Pole  dis- 
plays industry  that  adds  greatly  to  the 
production  of  the  valley.    Help  is  very 
scarce,  and   but    for   him    the  farms 
could  hardly  be  tilled. 

In  the  mill  towns  he  is  of  equal 
economic  service.  Had  it  not  been  for 
him,  the  cotton  industry  of  this  sec- 
tion had  probably  gone  south  for 
clieap  labor  and  long  hotu's.  The  Pole 
came  at  a  time  when  the  Irishman  and 
the  Frenchman  were  becoming  discon- 


tented. Cheerfully  he  accepts  their 
leavings,  never  strikes,  and  saves 
money  where  they  ran  into  debt. 

•Lacking  the  mental  acuteness  of 
the  Yankee,  the  Pole  might  not  sur- 
vive in  strenuous  economic  competi- 
tion, although  at  present  he  is  vmder- 
selling  him  in  the  markets  for  farm 
produce.  But  agriculture  no  longer 
appeals  to  the  imagination  of  the 
young  New  Englander,  who  shows 
little  disposition  to  contest  the  Pole's 
acquisition  of  farm  land.  It  is  not 
unlikely  that  in  twenty-five  years  he 
will  be  the  principal  land  owner  of  the 
valley.  Preferring  the  railroad  towns, 
he  still  occasionally  goes  back  into  the 
hills,  and  may  yet  solve  the  abandoned 
farm  problem. 

More  than  half  of  the  Poles  come 
here  to  accumulate  a  little  money  to 
pay  debts  or  buy  land  at  home,  and 
return  thinking  their  little  hoard  will 
go  farther  there.  Stanislaus  Czelins- 
niak,  who  returned  to  Poland  the 
other  day,  exulted  over  his  draft  for 
$1,500.  **No  work  no  more,"  he 
shouted.  This  coming  and  going 
greatly  hinders  Americanization,  as 
the  progress  of  the  colony  is  slow 
when  at  any  given  time  every  other 
man  is  a  raw  recruit. 

The  prospective  effect  of  this  mi- 
gration upon  social  and  political  con- 
ditions is  a  serious  problem.  As  the 
Pole  can  read  and  write  in  his  own 
tongue,  no  educational  test  will  ever 
shut  him  out  Superficially  he  be- 
comes after  a  few  years  somewhat 
Americanized.  He  wears  American 
coats  and  collars,  though  cleanliness 
he  still  regards  as  finical.  He  imi- 
tates American  farming  methods,  goes 
into  the  grocery  or  undertaking  busi- 
ness, starts  co-operative  bakeries,  and 


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OF  THE  PURITAN 


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forms  labor  unions.  He  is  less  and 
less  frequently  gulled  by  some  plausi- 
ble promoter  of  his  own  race,  who 
tells  him  he  can  acquire  a  tenement 
only  through  influence,  and  collects 
twenty-five  dollars  for  his  services  as 
intermediary  with  the  heartless  land- 
lord. When  the  young  people  marry, 
they  are  less  likely  to  keep  potatoes  in 
the  bed,  and  one  room  will  probably 
be  considered  inadequate  for  all  fam- 
ily purposes.  But  unfortunately  the 
Pole  neither  grasps  nor  accepts  the 
fundamental  principles  of  American 
citizenship. 

Commercially  he  is  regaucdtd  with 
respect,  for  he  pays  his  debts.  It  is 
safe  to  lend  him  money.  In  this  he 
seems  to  be  governed  by  his  old- 
world  experience,  where  debt  collec- 
tion was  merciless.  Regarding  Yan- 
kees and  Irishmen  as  a  ruling  class 
and  fearing  lest  they  crush  him,  he 
almost  never  steals  money  from  them. 
He  takes  the  bolts  and  nuts  from  the 
mill  machines,  for  in  his  childishness 
he  supposes  this  will  never  be  noticed. 
But  the  Polish  quarters  are  in  con- 
stant turmoil  over  his  thefts  from  his 
compatriots  whom  he  does  nofr  fear, 
many  of  whom  in  distrust  of  banks 
keep  money  in  trunks  and  bureau 
drawers.  The  Pole  has  little  sense  of 
responsibility,  and  leaves  work  with- 
out notice.  In  all  this  his  conformity 
to  commercial  morality  appears  to  be 
regulated  only  by  his  fears,  which  are 
intensified  by  his  ignorance.  Should 
he  awake  to  the  possibilities  open  to 
dishonesty,  he  might  not  be  so  wel- 
come at  the  grocery  store. 

Sympathy  with  his  down-trodden 
country  is  universal  in  America,  and 
hence  the  figure  of  the  Pole  is  not 
without  romantic  suggestion.    He  still 


hopes  for  a  free  and  reunited  Poland. 
His  race  experience  has  given  him  a 
certain  crude  love  for  liberty.  The 
schism  in  the  iVmerican  Polish  church 
shows  traces  of  this  feeling,  as  the  in- 
dependent priests  perform  the  offices 
of  the  Roman  clergy  without  author- 
ity from  the  hierarchy,  and  the  church 
property  is  vested  in  the  congregation 
instead  of  in  a  bishop  of  another  race. 
The  Pole  cherishes  as  essential  to 
freedom  the  privilege  of  committing 
numerous  acts  of  petty  violence. 
When  Martin  Van  Buren  invites 
Thomas  Jefferson — it  should  be  ex- 
plained that  a  mill  overseer,  tired  of 
the  consonant  bristling  names  of  his 
Polish  help,  renamed  them  after  the 
presidents — when  Martin  Van  Buren 
invites  Thomas  Jeflferson  to  his 
daughter's  wedding,  and  Thomas 
quarrels  with  Grover  Cleveland,  the 
fiddler,  for  playing  the  wrong  time, 
Thomas  feels  that  freedom  involves 
the  right  to  punch  Grover  in  the  head. 
No  disgrace  attaches  to  arrest,  and 
the  Pole  who  has  no  police  court  rec- 
ord is  regarded  as  lacking  in  spirit. 

Although  he  no  longer  walks  in  the 
middle  of  the  street,  as  did  the  pio- 
neers of  the  migration  who  dared  not 
venture  upon  the  sidewalk,  he  yet  re- 
tains much  of  his  old-world  fear  of 
authority.  But  he  lacks  imagination, 
and  authority  must  wear  visible  sym- 
bols. Should  the  Governor  or  Presi- 
dent appear  in  Chicopee  and  suggest 
to  Wenceslas  Oszajca  that  he  display 
less  exuberance  of  spirits,  he  would 
only  bawl  the  louder.  But  when 
Michael  Moriarty,  clothed  in  all  the 
majesty  of  blue  coat,  brass  buttons, 
and  swinging  club,  says  **Be  aisy 
now,"   Wenceslas  becomes  "aisy"  at 


once. 


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166 


THE   POLE   IN   THE   LAND 


Politically  the  Pole  is  as  yet  indif- 
ferent and  hence  harmless.  To  him  the 
dollar  is  all,  and  so  far  he  sees  no 
money  in  politics.  A  naturalizaticm 
club  was  organized  several  years  ago 
in  Chicopee,  but  only  about  thirty 
Poles  have  taken  out  papers.  It  is 
unlikely  that  the  Pole  would  object  to 
selling  his  vote;  and  a  community  in 
which  he  is  strong  numerically,  unless 
protected  by  an  efficient  public  senti- 
ment, could  easily  be  made  by  an  Ad- 
dicks  into  a  second  Delaware. 

Although  he  has  taken  little  advan- 
tage of  certain  opportunities  for  dis- 
honesty eagerly  grasped  by  other 
races,  he  has  his  tricks  and  strata- 
gems; but  they  are  childishly  trans- 
parent. In  taking  his  money  to  the 
savings  bank,  he  often  inserts  a  few 
ones  or  twos  in  packages  supposed  to 
be  all  five  dollar  bills,  hoping  the  clerk 
will  count  each  bill  as  a  five.  When 
he  goes  for  his  beer,  of  which  he 
drinks  copiously,  he  often  offers  a  pail 
several  times  too  large,  hoping  the 
bartender  through  mistake  will  give 
him  more  than  he  pays  for.  His 
density  appears  in  business  transac- 
tions. Roman  Sibisky,  a  veritable 
Napoleon  of  finance  in  the  colony, 
made  three  thousand  dollars  two  years 
ago  by  a  lucky  speculation  in  onions. 
The  next  season  all  his  neighbors  sup- 
posed money  could  be  made  that  way 
every  year,  and  laid  in  large  stocks  of 
the  vegetable.  But  most  of  their 
hoards  bought  at  sixty  cents  a  bushel 
were  thrown  upon  the  ground  for  lack 
of  demand  at  any  price. 

There  are  Poles  and  Poles;  the 
Russian  is  superior  to  the  Austrian; 
the  farmer  gains  faster  than  the  mill- 
hand.  The  race  is  badly  misrepre- 
sented by  the  Western  Massachusetts 


colony,  which  is  drawn  from  low 
social  strata  of  fatherland  life.  Tak- 
ing the  average  0>nnecticut  valley 
Pole,  judging  by  his  small  trickeries 
and  falsehoods,  assuming  that  he 
learns  the  possibilites  open  to  dishon- 
esty and  the  means  by  which  punish- 
ment is  ordinarily  evaded,  one  must 
pronounce  him  capable  of  very  consid- 
erable commercial  and  political  trick- 
ery. But  his  density  may  save  him. 
He  is  too  slow,  his  stratagems  too 
childish  to  outwit  the  Yankee  or  the 
Irish- American.  The  Pole  of  to-day  is 
said  to  be  superior  to  the  Irishman  of 
fifty  years  ago.  But  his  development 
can  not  possibly  follow  the  rapid  prog- 
ress of  the  Celt  The  single  obstacle 
of  language  is  too  great.  Night 
schools  are  doing  something  for  him, 
but  his  progress  educationally  is  slow. 
The  real  problem  lies  with  the  chil- 
dren in  the  schools,  who  show  much 
promise.  They  will  inherit  strong 
bodies,  courage,  industry,  thrift,  en- 
durance, and  will  gain  some  d^^ee  of 
mental  acuteness,  thus  acquiring  the 
qualities  most  largely  contributory  to 
the  material  success  won  by  the  Puri- 
tan as'pioneer.  They  will  be  of  great 
economic  service,  will  till  the  farms 
and  tend  the  looms  that  the  Yankees 
have  left.  But  when  one  thinks  of  the 
formalism  of  their  religion,  of  their 
crowded  homes  and  promiscuous  life, 
of  the  lack  of  moral  sense  on  the  part 
of  parents,  one  sees  little  hope  for  a 
helpful  social  or  political  influence. 
In  spite  of  many  feiults,  the  Puritan 
hitched  his  wagon  to  a  star,  but  the 
Pole  sees  more  pulling  power  in  a 
bankbook,  and  his  mind  is  fixed  on 
things  of  the  earth,  earthy.  But  of 
course  there  is  always  hope  for  a  third 
generation. 

Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


The  Boston  Athenaeum 


By  Augusta  W.  Kellogg 


THE  Boston  Athenaeum  has, 
from  its  inception,  been 
closely  identified  with  all 
that  is  best  in  the  history  of 
the  city.  It  is, 
remotely,  the  re- 
sult of  an  under- 
taking by  Phine- 
as  Adams,  son 
of  a  Lexington 
farmer,  whose 
straitened  cir- 
cumstances com- 
pelled him  to 
abandon  the  hope 
of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation, and  to 
sedc  the  means 
of  livelihood  at 
the  paper-mak- 
er's trade.  A 
phi  lanthropic 
friend,  Mrs.  Fos- 
ter of  Brighton, 
came  to  his  res- 
cue, and  made  it 
possible  for  him 
to  enter  Harvard 
College  in  the 
class  of  1801.     It 

was  this  young  fellow — hardly  more 
than  a  boy — who,  two  years  after  be- 
ing graduated,  started  and  conducted 
The  Monthly  Anthology,  or  Maga- 
zine of  Polite  Literature,  Finding 
the  returns  inadequate  to  his  support, 
young  Adams,  at  the  end  of  six 
months,  withdrew  from  the  enterprise, 


leaving     the     printers,     Francis    and 
Munroe,  to  make  what  advantageous 
arrangement  they  could  for  its  future. 
Fortimately,  they  succeeded  in  enlist- 
ing for  the  peri- 
odica] — the  name 
of      which      was 
changed    to    The 
Monthly   Anthol- 
ogy   and    Boston 
Reznezv — the   ac- 
tive    interest    of 
several      young 
men      "conspicu- 
ous for  talent  and 
zealous  for  liter- 
ature."       These) 
fourteen     men, 
John      Sylvester 
John       Gardiner, 
William      Emer- 
son,    Arthur 
Maynard      Wal- 
ter,     William 
Smith      Shaw, 
Samuel      Cooper 
Thacher,    Joseph 
Stevens        Buck- 
minster,     Joseph 
Tuckerman,  Wil- 
liam   Tudor,    Jr.,    Peter    Oxenbridge 
Thacher,     Thomas     Gray,     William 
Wells,    Edmund    Trowbridge    Dana, 
John     Collins     Warren     and    James 
Jackson,    formed   an    association    for 
literary     purposes,     and     named     it 
The   Anthology   Society.     Within   a 
month  after  its  formation,  at  a  meet- 


167 


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Phbto  by  Baldwin  Coolidge 


Copyright  1903  by  Boston  Athenxum 


Exterior   of   Building 


ing  held  at  Mr.  Gardiner's  house  in 
FrankHn  Place,  Mr.  Emerson  moved, 
seconded  by  Mr.  Shaw,  that  a  library 
of  periodical  literature  should  be  es- 
tablished for  their  use  and  benefit. 
Mr.  Gardiner  immediately  tendered 
for  the  purpose,  between  sixty  and 
seventy  volumes  of  the  Gentleman's 
Magazine;  Mr.  Emerson  presented 
twenty  volumes  of  the  Monthly  Maga- 
zine, the  European  Magazine,  Analyti- 
cal Keviezv  and  Critical  RevirtV,  and  va- 
168 


rious  volumes  of  newspapers ;  Mr.  Tu- 
dor gave  several  numbers  of  Le  Mer- 
cure  dc  France  and  La  Decade;  Mr. 
Shaw  presented  various  numbers  of 
the  Anti-JacobiHy  and  Mr.  Buckmins- 
ter  the  same  of  the  Monthly  Rez'iew. 

By  May,  1806,  this  little  seed  of  a 
library  had  grown  sufficiently  to  war- 
rant the  Society  in  establishing  a 
reading-room,  which,  as  they  said, 

"will  not  only  afford  the  subscribers  an 
agreeable  place  of  resort,  but  opportuni- 


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THE    BOSTON    ATHENAEUM 


169 


tics  of  literary  intercourse  and  the  pleas- 
ure of  perusing  the  principal  European 
and  American  periodical  publications,  at 
in  expense  not  exceeding  that  of  a  single 
daily  paper/* 

The  plan  w-as: 
"that  the  gentlemen  engage  to  provide  a 
commodious  room,  easy  of  access,  in  a 
central  part  of  the  town.  It  shall  be 
open  from  nine  A.  M.  to  nine  P.  M.  It 
shall  he  furnished  with  seats,  tables, 
paper,  pens  and  ink;  with  the  Boston 
papers,  and  all  the  celebrated  Gazettes 
published  in  the  United  States,  with  the 
most  interesting  literary  and  political 
pamphlets  in  Europe  and  America;  with 
magazines,  reviews  and  scientific  journals; 
London  and  Paris  newspapers;  SteePs 
Army  and  Xavy  Lists;  Naval  Chronicle; 
London  and  Paris  booksellers'  cata- 
logues; Parliamentary  debates;  biblio- 
graphical works,  etc.,  etc.  The  gazettes, 
magazines,  etc.,  shall  be  bound  in  semi- 
annual volumes  and  preserved  for  the  use 
of  the  establishment.  Should  this  attempt 
be  encouraged,  it  is  contemplated  to  fur- 
nish the  reading-room  with  maps  and 
charts,  and  to  collect  such  rare  and  costly 
works  of  useful  reference,  etc.,  as  may 
enhance  the  value  and  reputation  of  the 
establishment. 

The  annual  subscription  was  placed  at 
ten  dollars.  The  response  to  the  cir- 
cular was  immediate  and  gratifying. 
More  than  one  hundred  persons  sub- 
scribed and  the  treasury  held  upwards 
of  sixteen  hundred  dollars. 

Benjamin  Wells,  Robert  Hallowell 
Gardiner,  Robert  Field,  James  Sav- 
age and  John  Thornton  Kirkland  had 
been  added  to  the  original  members  of 
The  Anthology  Society,  when,  in  the 
autumn  of  1806,  a  plan 
"for  transferring  the  Library  and  Reading- 
room  to  the  control  of  a  body  politic  to 
be  chartered  by  the  Legislature,  was 
matured." 

Five  trustees,  —  William  Emerson, 
John    Thornton    Kirkland,  Peter  O. 


Photo  by  BaTdwin  Coolidgc 

Copyright  i«a).^  by  Boston  Athcn.i-um 

William  S.  Shaw 

First  Librarian 
From  the  painting  by  Stuart 

Thaclier,  William  Smith  Shaw  and 
Arthur  Maynard  Walter,  were  elected, 
to  whom,  by  a  formal,  legal  instru- 
ment, the  associated  members  sur- 
rendered the  property  belonging  to 
the  Society  under  certain  conditions 
for  its  care  and  administration  for  the 
original  purpose  of  The  Anthology 
Society.  Rooms  were  taken  in  Scol- 
lay's  Building  between  Tremont  and 
Court  streets  and  the  subscribers  were 
informed  by  circular  of  the  "Rules 
and  Regulations  appertaining  to  the 
conthict  of  The  Anthology  Reading 
Room  and  Library."  The  books  al- 
ready numbered  about  one  thousand. 
A  constitution  drafted  and  accepted 
provided  for  the  election  of  officers, 
admission  of  members  and  the  disposi- 
tion of  papers  presented  for  publica- 
tion.   All  the  arrangements  were  upon 


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170 


THE    BOSTON    ATHENAEUM 


a  most  liberal  basis.  Judges  of  the 
Supreme,  Circuit  and  District  Courts, 
President  and  Proprietors  of  Harvard 
College,  Presidents  of  the  Academy  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  and  of  the  Histori- 
cal Society  were  elected  honorary 
members. 

The  corporate  existence  of  this  So- 
ciety, extending  over  about  six  years, 
is  recorded  in  ten  octavo  volumes  of 
which  the  Hon.  Josiah  Quincy,  his- 
torian of  the  Athenaeum,  says : 

"tliey  yet  remain  an  evidence  that  it  was 
a  pleasant,  active,  high-principled  associ- 
atifMi  of  literary  men,  laboring  harmoni- 
ously to  elevate  the  literary  standard  of 
the  time." 

A  great  stride  onward  was  made, 
when,  on  New  Year's  day,  1807,  the 
trustees  declared  their  intention  to  es- 
tablish in  Boston  an  institution  simi- 
lar to  the  Athenaeum  and  Lyceum 
founded  in  Liverpool,  England,  in 
1798.  London  had  long  possessed 
foundations  for  science,  literature  and 
arts.  Philadelphia  had  established  one 
in  1731,  while  that  in  Charleston, 
South  Carolina,  bore  date  1754.  Bal- 
timore and  other  towns  had  emulated 
these  examples,  and  it  seemed  fitting 
to  the  far-sighted  and  public-spirited 
group  of  Anthologists  that  Boston 
also  should  now  take  the  step  which 
they  deemed  momentous  in  her  intel- 
lectual life.  They  therefore  petitioned 
the  State  Legislature  for  a  charter, 
which  was  granted,  receiving  the  sig- 
nature of  the  Governor  the  thirteenth 
of  February,  1807.  The  corporation 
under  the  name  of  **The  Proprietors 
of  The  Boston  Athenaeum"  had  for  its 
president  the  Hon.  Theophilus  Par- 
sons, LL.  D.,  Chief  Justice  of  the 
Commonwealth ;    vice-president,  Hon. 


John  Davis,  District  Judge  of  Massa- 
chusetts ;  treasurer,  John  Lowell, 
Esq. ;  secretary,  William  Smith  Shaw, 
Esq.;  directors.  Rev.  Wm.  Emerson, 
Rev.  John  Thornton  Kirkland,  D.  D., 
Peter  ( )xcnbridge  Thacher,  Esq., 
Robert  Hallowell  Gardiner,  Esq.,  and 
Rev.  Joseph  Stevens  Buckminster. 
The  objects  and  terms  were  clearly  set 
forth  in  a  memoir  circulated  for  the 
information  of  all  interested.  The 
annual  report  on  finances  showed  one 
hundred  subscriptions  at  $300  each. 
As  the  sum  of  $45,000  was  all  that 
had  been  proposed  to  raise  by  the 
original  plan,  the  result  was  consid- 
ered to  justify  the  purchase  of  land 
whereon  to  erect  a  suitable  building 
for  permanent  quarters. 

But  this  confidence  and  prosperity 
came  to  a  sudden  termination,  which 
caused  an  indefinite  postponement  of 
the  building  project.  The  troubles 
that  led  up  to  the  war  of  181 2  were 
already  causing  embarrassments  in 
the  business  world.  As  is  well  re- 
membered that  war  was  most  unpopu- 
lar in  New  England  and  the  adminis- 
trations of  both  Jefferson  and  Madi- 
son were  held  in  light  esteem.  Josiah 
Quincy  is  on  record  as  saying  the 
former  was  **a  fraud  and  his  followers 
dupes  or  ruffians,"  and  when  in  Wash- 
ington would  not  accept  an  invita- 
tion to  dine  at  the  White  House.  Dr. 
Gardiner  preached  a  sermon  in  Trin- 
ity Church,  from  Mark  x.  41 :  "And 
they  began  to  be  much  dissatisfied 
with  James,"  meaning  President  Mad- 
ison. These  troublous  times  con- 
tinued for  several  years,  causing  dis- 
turbances in  private  and  public 
works.  The  proprietors  of  The  Athe- 
naeum wisely  contented  themselves  in 


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THE    BOSTON    ATHENAEUM 


171 


their  modest  Tremont  Street  quarters, 
making  no  move  for  change  in  the 
achninist ration  of  affairs.  From  time 
to  time  as  opportunity  offered,  they 
invested  in  whatever  valuable  works 
were  offered  wherewith  to  enrich  their 
library  and  museum. 

I*iit  in  1818,  the  war  being  over, 
ihey  again  took  up  their  somewhat 
neglected  duties.  It  was  found  that 
Mr.  Shaw  had  been  specially  efficient 
in  collecting  "rare  books,  coins  and 
relics  of  antiquity.''  Some  of  these 
had  been  purchased  with  his  own 
money ;  some  were  gifts  and  bequests, 
but  all  had  been  indiscriminately  de- 
posited in  the  general  collection.  The 
efforts  to  bring  order  out  of  this  secre- 
tarial administration  proved  most  diffi- 
cult, if  not  impossible,  owing  to  Mr. 
Shaw's  "temperamental  love  of  ease 
and  disregard  of  his  personal  inter- 
ests." Unwilling  to  wound  so  gener- 
ous and  zealous  a  friend,  the  matter 
was  dropped.  But  it  may  be  said 
here,  that  upon  Mr.  Shaw's  death,  in 
1826,  his  heir-at-law,  Rev.  J.  B.  Felt, 


Photo  by  Baldwin  Coolidge 

The    ATHENyEUM    PLATE 
Showing  Mr.  Perkins's  Pearl  Street  House 


Photo  by  Baldwin  Coolidge 

Copyright  1903  by  Boston  Athenxum 

James   Perkins 

From  the  painting  by  Stuart 

made  over,  outright,  the  entire  collec- 
tion of  books  and  coins  then  in  the 
care  of  The  Athenaeum.  There  were 
upwards  of  thirty  thousand  coins  and 
medals,  some  duplicates,  some  of  little 
or  no  value,  but  enough  to  guarantee 
an  interesting  cabinet  of  several  thou- 
sand pieces.  Mr.  Shaw's  purchases 
had  been  entirely  within  the  line  of 
collections  proposed  from  the  first, 
which'X^s  specifically  set  forth  as  in 
wh^h  was  specifically  set  forth  as  in- 

'V^Qnets  with  specimens  from  the  three 
kingdom?  of  nature,  scientifically  ar- 
ranged, natural  and  artificial  curiosities, 
a  repository  of  arts,  including  paintings 
and  statuary  and  models  of  new  and  im- 
proved useful  machines;  a  laboratory  for 
experiments  in  chemistry  and  natural 
philosophy;  astronomical  observations  and 
geographical  improvements." 

Mr.  Obadiah  Rich  had,  before  this. 


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172 


THE    BOSTON    ATHENAEUM 


Photo  by  T.  E.  Marr        •  .         , 

King's  Chapel  Library 

Given  by  William  and  Mary 

given  to  the  Society  his  collection  of 
rare  Natural  History  specimens,  gen- 
erously offering  his  personal  supervis- 
ion in  the  formation  of  a  cabinet  for 
such  objects. 

As  far  back  ^s  1867  the  "Society  for 
Promoting  Philosophical  Knowledge" 
had  united  its  '  aipparatus  with  that 
owned  by  The  Athenaeum.  The  Acad- 
emy of  Science  and  Arts,  the  oldest 
institution  of  its  krnd  in  Boston,  and 
the  second  oldest  in  America,  had  de- 
posited its  library  here  in  1817.  In 
taking  account  .of  stack,  in  resuming 
business — as  it  were — it  was  found 
in  addition  to  the  -above,  that  there 
were  nineteen  hundred  volumes  avail- 
able for  use,  and  increasing  at  a  fairly 
uniform  annual  rate.  It  had  begun 
to  be  considered 

"an  appropriate  plac6  of  deposit  for  con- 
tinuous series  of  documents,  all-important 
as  elements  of  history.'* 


The  New  Ybrk  Legislature  had  passed 
an  act,  authorfzing  the  Secretary  ot 
State 

"to  deliver  .to  the  Boston  Athenaum  a 
copy  of  t'he  laws  heretofore  passed  and  to 
be  hereafter  passed  at  each  succeeding 
scssioaof  the  Legislature." 

When  John  Quincy  Adams  went  in 
1808  as  the  first  United  States  minis- 
ter to  Russia,  he  left  his  library  of 
5,450  volumes,  just  doubling  the  num- 
ber then  upon  the  stacks,,  in  care  of  the 
Athenaeum,  where  they  remained 
eleven  years. 

'  Freedpm  of  the  privileges  of  the 
library  was  extended  to  the  Regular 
clergy  of  the  city,  to  foreign  consuls. 
Governor,  Lieutenant-Governor,  mem- 
bers of  the  Legislature,  officers,  and 
resident  graduates  of  Harvard,  Wil- 
liams and  Amherst  Colleges,  and  of 
the  Theological  Institute  of  Audover; 
the  Presidents  of  the  American  Acad- 
emy of  Sciences,  Historical,  Medical 
and  Agricultural  Societies,  and  The 
Athenaeum  and  East  India  Marine 
Society  of  Salem. 

By  1820,  Josiah  Quincy  succeeded 
John  Lowell  as  President.  "A  descend- 
ant of  the  first  thus  eulogizes  the  sec- 
ond : 

'*John  Lowell  was  distinguished  as  one 
of  the  master  minds  of  the  period  in  this 
vicinity,  whose  active  and  efficient  labors 
are  apparent,  not  only  in  the  history  of 
this  institution,  and  in  that  of  Harvard 
College,  but  no  less  in  the  annals  of 
agriculture  and  horticulture,  and  of  the 
political  and  theological  events  of  the 
time:^^ver  all  of  which  no  individual 
shed  a  more  clear  light,  or  exerted  a  more 
powerful   influence." 

At  this  time  the  subject  of  building 
was  again  agitated,  but  before  a  con- 
clusion was  reached  the  offer  of  a  gift 


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of  a  mansion  in  Pearl  Street,  valued 
at  $20,000,  was  received  from  James 
Perkins,  Esq.,  \vh6  had  been  vice- 
president  and  trustee  of  the  institu- 
tion.    He  did  this,  he  said, 

**in  consideration  of  the  importance  of 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge  to  the  liberty 
and  happiness  of  any  community,  and  of 
the  beneficial  effects  of  public  libraries 
and  reading-rooms  to  promote  this  im- 
portant end,  and  also  for  a  special  re- 
gard to  The  Boston  Athenicum,  which  was 
founded,  and  has  been  hitherto  supported, 
on   these   principles." 

The  only  condition  attached  to  this 
gift  was  that: 

"no  part  of  the  estate  herein  conveyed 
shall  ever  hereafter  be  used  as  a  tavern, 
hotel,  boarding-house,  livery  stable,  or  for 
any  other  public  use,  except  for  a  literary 
inisiitution;  it  not  being  my  intention  to 
preclude  the  use  of  it  as  a  private  dwelling- 
house,  though  it  is  my  wish  and  expecta- 
tion, in  making  the  grant,  that  it  may  al- 
ways be  improved  for  public  literary  pur- 
poses; but  it  is  not  my  wish  to  bind  the 
corporation,  in  all  future  times,  to  retain 
that  estate  for  the  purposes  of  an 
Athenajum,  whenever  three-fourths  of 
the  proprietors  may  think  it  for  the  in- 
terest of  the  institution  to  place  it  in 
some  other  situation." 

Mr.  Perkins's"  estate,  with  an  adjoin- 
ing^ one  then  purchased,  was  occupied 
in  the  summer  of  182 1,  only  two 
months  before  the  benefactor's  death. 
In  acknowledgment  of  his  services 
and  of  his  gifts,  the  proprietors  com- 
missioned Gilbert  Stuart  to  copy  his 
own  portrait  of  Mr.  Perkins,  owned 
by  the  widow.  Three  hundred  dol- 
lars were  appropriated,  but  the  pay- 
ment was  forestalled  by  private  contri-. 
butions.  Mr.  Perkins  was  a  mipr- 
chant  prince  in  the  best  and  old-fash- 
ioned sense  of  that  term.  '  He  gave 


Phuto  by  Baldwin  Coolidge 

Copyright  1903  by  Boston  Athenxuni 

Hannah  Adams 

From  the  painting  by  Harding 

liberally  to  the  Massachusetts  General 
Hospital,  to  the  Cambridge  Theologi- 
cal School,  and  left  a  bequest  of  $20,- 
000  to  Harvard  College. 

In  its  new  home  a  more  strenuous 
life  began  for  the  Athenaeum.  An 
entire  new  code  of  by-laws  was  drawn 
up ;  extra  arrangements  made  fbr  clas- 
sification and  access  to  books ;  a  libra- 
rian appointed  to  relieve  Mr.  Shaw, 
who  had  heretofore  assumed  the  cares 
of  that  office  in  addition  to  his  own 
multifarious  duties,  and  an  official 
catalogue  was  begun. '  A  lecture 
course  was  proposed  whenever  a  suit^ 
able  room  could  be  prepared.  The 
fine  artsi  cpllectioh  was  enriched  by  a 
giftirom  Mt.  Augustus  Thorndike  of 
a  number  of  casts  from  some  of  the 
most  celebrated  statues  of  antiquity. 


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174 


THE    BOSTON    ATHENAEUM 


William  F.  Poole 

Fourth  Librarian 

Students  were  admitted  to  copy  these. 
In  1823  a  library  which  had  been  pre- 
sented to  Kind's  Chapel  by  William 
and  Mary,  and  a  theoloj^^ical  library  of 
thirteen  hundred  volumes,  some  very 
rare,  belonging  to  an  Association  of 
Ministers,  came  as  a  deposit  to  the 
Athenaeum.  The  annual  dues,  which 
during  the  war  had  been  $18,  were 
now  reduced  to  the  ante-bellum  $10. 
The  continuous  flow  of  gifts  called 
again  for  enlarged  quarters,  and  in 
1826  it  was  voted  to  add 

"an  Academy  of  Fine  Arts  to  comprise 
exhibition  and  lecture  rooms  with  base- 
ment to  lease  for  the  use  of  the  Medical 
and  Historical  Societies,  and  the  Ameri- 
can and  Scientific   Library  Association.'' 

h'or  the  funds  necessary  for  this  addi- 
tion, the  expected  revenues  from  the 
leased  basement  were  to  be  antici- 
pated. At  this  crisis  a  brother  and 
son  of  Mr.  James  Perkins  came  for- 
ward with  the  offer  of  $8,000  each,  on 
condition  that  an  equal  sum  should  be 
subscribed  outside  of  their  own  family. 
The  committee  having  the  matter  in 
charge  were  soon  able  to  report  the 
condition    had    been    complied    with, 


thus  establishingwhat  the  Hon.  Josiah 
Ouincy  termed 

"the  reiterated  munificence  of  a  family  for 
patronage  of  science  and  the  arts,  and  for 
a  generous  support  of  institutions  of 
chanty  and  philanthropy,  may  well  vie,  in 
the  city  of  Boston,  with  that  of  the  Medici 
in  Florence." 

The  number  of  books  was  now  in- 
creased by  the  acquisition  of  the  Med- 
ical Library,  containing  more  than 
two  thousand  volumes  of  well-selected 
works  on  modern  surgery  and  chemis- 
try, which  had  been  purchased  within 
ten  years,  at  an  outlay  of  $4,500.  A 
union  was  also  effected  with  the  Scien- 
tific Association,  whereby  arrange- 
ments were  made 

"tor  completing  the  transactions  of  the 
Royal  Societies  and  Academies  of  Sci- 
ences in  London,  Edinburgh,  Dublin, 
Paris,  St.  Petersburgh,  Berlin,  Turin, 
Gcittingen,  Stockholm,  Copenhagen,  Mad- 
rid and  Lisbon,  making  the  whole  one  of 
the  most  complete  scientific  libraries  in 
the  United  States." 

One  hundred  and  fifty  new  shares 
were  issued,  increasing  the  number  to 
three  hundred.  The  Treasurer's  re- 
port for  1827  showed  property  valua- 


Charles  K.  Bolton 

Present  Librarian 


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The   Picture   Gallery 

From  a  painting  by  Meneghelli 


tion  of  $108,282.52.  It  was  now  pos- 
sible to  set  aside  a  permanent  fund  for 
the  purchase  of  books.  A  loan  exhibi- 
tion of  paintings,  which  thereafter 
became  an  annual  one,  resulted  in 
adding  $2,500  to  the  treasury  to 
be  used  for  the  encouragement  of 
art.  In  pursuance  of  that  object, 
Gilbert  Stuart  was  commissioned  to 
paint  ^Ir.  Thomas  Handsayd  Per- 
kins's portrait.  Two  thousand  dollars 
was  expended  on  Trumbuirs  "Sortie 
of  Gibraltar,"  $100  on  Annibale  Ca- 
racci's  portrait  of  himself,  and  $400 
on  John  Neagle's  '*The  Blacksmith." 
The  story  is  this :  A  blacksmith,  Pat- 
rick Lyon  of  Philadelphia,  charged 
with  robbing  a  bank,  was  arrested, 
proved  innocent,  sued  the  bank  au- 
thorities, won  his  case,  and  the  dam- 
ages obtained  for  false  imprisonment 
became  the  nest-egg  of  a  large  for- 
tune. What  claim  these  circum- 
stances gave  him  to  a  position  in  the 


ATHKIfilfirM  CALLRKY. 


^^p^ TO  THB  — — 

PICTURE   GALLERY 

or  TBM  Boston  Athenjbum, 

TO  TIIW  THX 

AlOmm  SngraUCnoB  of  amerfean  Hfrtix, 

BY  MR.  AUDUBON. 

•t^^'J^  C7i  ^^c^ Librarian. 


Door  opM  ftom  10  to  1  o'elock. 


\n 


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The  SuMNEi  Staircase 


Boston  Athenaeum,  tradition  does  not  ; 
explain,  but  the  canvas  still  hangs  in 
the  vestibule  and  often  excites  inquiry.  ; 
The  Athenaeum  became  a  subscriber  ' 
to  the  Arundel  Society's  chromo-lith- 
ograph    productions,    and    these    and  ; 
similar  foundations,  built  upon  from 
time  to  time,  by  donations  and  pur-" 
chases,  became  fit  for  the  superstruc- 
ture of  the  first  Art  Museum  in  the  • 
city.     In  1829  a  wonder  of  wonders  '. 
happened.     It     v^as     discovered    that  ' 
there  was  a  woman  in  Medford,  Han- 
nah Adams  by  name,  who  was  covet- 
ous of  the  privileges  of  a  library.    She 
said  her  hope  of  heaven,  even,  lay  in  - 
the    desire  to    assuage    her  thirst  foi* 
knowledge.     It  had   occurred   to  her  ; 
feminine  mind  that  it  was  not  impos- 
sible to  anticipate  the  usual  relegation  [ 
of    celestial    attainments .. and  .obtain.. 
176 


their  sweet  foretastes  in  this  vale  of 
tears.  Mr.  Shaw  received  her  "appli- 
cation with  a  beautiful  tolerance,  gal- 
lantly permitting  her  to  roam  at  will, 
in  what  had  hitherto  been  strictly  a 
man's  paradise.  Miss  Adams's  wan- 
derings must  have  been  circumscribed, 
afe  she  was  housekeeper  for  her  -wid- 
owed father  and  his  family  of  children 
and  a  few  students  as  boarders. 
Some  of  these  latter  she  fitted'  for  col- 
lege, and  from  some  of  them  she  her- 
self learned  Greek,  Latin  and  logic. 
She  contributed  to  the  support  of  the 
family  by  spinning,  weaving  and 
knitting.  She  was  the  first  American 
woman  to  write  a  book;  it  was  enti- 
tled "A  View  of  Religious  Opinions," 
and  went  through  two  editions,  hav- 
ing a  sale  in  England  as  well  as  at 
home.     She  followed  this  , wQ^k.  .with 


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Present  Entrance  Hall  * 


the  first  American  "History  of  New 
England,"  and  "The  History  of  the 
Jews."  The  next  woman  to  venture 
within  the  charmed  precincts  was  Mrs. 
Lydia  Maria  Child.  Her  ticket  of  ad- 
mission was  soon  revoked,  "lest  the 
privilege  cause  future  embarrass- 
ment" 

In  1831  the  purchase  of  Gilbert 
Stuart's  unfinished  original  portraits 
of  George  and  Martha  Washington 
was  eflfected  for  $1,500,  partly  by  con- 
tributions from  the  Trustees  of  the 
Washington  Monument  Association, 
and  partly  by  private  subscription. 
The  historian  quoted  above  says: 

''these  portraits  coming  from  the  most 
distinguished  artist  who  ever  attempted 
the  likeness  of  General  and  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington, are  undoubtedly  the  most  valu- 
able and  the  most  authentic  of  all  ever 
Uken  of  them" 


A  party  of  Americans  who  met  cas- 
ually in.  Italy  in  1832,  bought  Horatio 
Greenough^s  bust  of  Dr.  Kirkland  and 
presented  it  to  the  Athenaeum;  soon 
after  Washington  Allston's  "Isaac  of 
York"  was  purchased,  as  well  as  four 
great  arcTiitectural  paintings  by  Pan- 
nini^  for  which  $6,000  were  paid. 
Rusts,  pictures  and  books  increased  in 
gratifying  abundance.  George  Wash- 
ington Greene  wrote  in  his  "Historical 
Studies:" 

"The  Berston  Athenaeum  has  already  made 
a  large  collection  of  valuable  books,  and 
follows,  we  believe,  though  perhaps  at 
somewhat  too  respectful  a  distance,  the 
progress  of  the  literature  of  the  day." 

The  Board  of  Trustees  was  greatly 
bereft ;  in  1838  by  the  death  of  Dr. 
Nathaniel  Bowditch.  A  memorial  was 
issued .  describing  him  as  standing 

177 

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The  Washington  Library 


"at  the  head  of  the  scientific  men  of  this 
country,  and  no  man  living  has  con- 
tributed more  to  his  country's  reputation. 
His  fame  is  of  the  most  durable  kind, 
resting  on  the  union  of  the  highest 
genius  with  the  most  practical  talent,  and 
the  application  of  both  to  the  good  of  his 
fellow-men.  Every  American  ship  crosses 
the  ocean  with  more  safety  for  his  labors, 
and  the  most  eminent  mathematicians  of 
Europe  have  acknowledged  him  their 
equal  in  the  highest  walks  of  their 
Fcience.  His  last  great  work  (the  trans- 
lation of  La  Place's  'Mecanique  Celeste') 
ranks  with  the  noblest  productions  of  our 
age." 

The  Trustees  cooperated  with  other 
societies  in  erecting  a  monument — the 
first  bronze  in  the  country — to  his 
memory,  in  Mt.  Auburn.  In  1839 
Mr.  Ambrose  S.  Courtis  left  by  will  a 
sum  of  money  to  the  Athenaeum.  The 
178 


expressions  of  the  will — if  not  the 
conditions — were  so  complicated,  that 
failing  to  agree  on  the  precise  meaning, 
the  heirs  paid  over  the  sum  of  $5,000 
without  litigation.  When  Mr.  James 
Perkins  made  a  gift  of  the  deed  to  his 
mansion  in  Pearl  Street  it  was  the 
finest  residential  quarter  of  the  city. 
The  crown  of  Fort  Hill  made  a  beau- 
tiful background  for  the  streets  lead- 
ing up  its  slope.  But  by  1839  busi- 
ness had  encroached,  warehouses  and 
factories  had  intruded,  isolating  the 
Athenaeum  from  the  clientele  which 
most  enjoyed  and  profited  by  its  treas- 
ures. A  committee  of  two,  John  A. 
Lowell  and  Thomas  H.  Curtis,  was 
appointed  to  wait  upon  Mrs.  James 
r^crkins,  to  confer  on  the  subject  of 
the  removal  of  the  society  to  a  more 


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The  Reading  Room 


central  situation.  With  the  fairness 
and  courtesy  that  marked  all  the  deal- 
ings of  the  family,  she  cordially  gave 
consent  to  any  measure  for  the  highest 
good  of  the  institution.  With  the  pros- 
pect of  enlarged  opportunities  renewed 
interest  was  everywhere  manifest. 
The  city  added  $2,000  to  the  Athen- 
aeum's $500,  wherewith  to  buy  Craw- 
ford's marble  "Group  of  Orpheus," 
and  even  granted  $300  more  for  a 
building  suitable  for  its  exhibition. 
A  statue  of  '*Venus  Victrix,"  a  bas- 
relief  of  Horatio  Greenough's  "Judg- 
ment of  Paris,"  Richard  Greenough's 
bust  of  William  H.  Prescott,  Powers's 
marble  bust  of  Daniel  Webster,  and 
one  in  the  same  material  of  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  were  all  acquired 
about  this  time.     Many  new  pictures 


also  came  into  possession,  among  them 
copies  of  Guidons  "St.  Michael"  and 
"Martyrdom  of  San  Sebastian,"  Cop- 
ley's "St.  Cecilia,"  a  landscape  by 
Caspar  Poussin,  Rembrandt's  portrait 
of  himself,  a  Vandyke,  a  Zuccherelli, 
and  others.  Twenty-six  translations 
of  the  Bible,  seventy-three  octavos  of 
New  York  legislative  proceedings,  and 
a  folio  of  New  York  census  were  put 
upon  the  stacks.  Also,  a  magnificent 
work  in  seven  imperial  volumes  of 
"The  Antiquities  of  Mexico,"  and 
eighty-five  folios  of  architectural  en- 
gravings from  works  of  the  Masters. 
A  complete  set  of  a  learned  inquiry 
into  the  treatment  of  criminal  classes 
and  care  of  the  poor,  was  much  valued 
as  containing  the  then  last  word  on 
those  important  subjects. 

179 
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Delivery  Room,  Lower  Floor 


It  was  shown  that  property  from 
all  sources  amounted  to  $140,651.78. 
In  1844  steps  were  taken  in  dead  earn- 
est towards  the  new  building  which 
the  Trustees  fondly  hoped  would  "ac- 
commodate the  institution  for  all  fu- 
ture time/'  Sites  were  examined,  and 
A  lot  of  land  at  the  head  of  Hamilton 
Place,  and  another  at  the  head  of 
Bumstead  Place,  were  reported  upon 
favorably.  Negotiations  failed,  how- 
ever, to  secure  either  of  these,  and 
17,328  feet  were  finally  bought  on 
Tremont  Street  for  $84,102.  Unwill- 
ing to  incur  debt,  the  actual  breaking 
of  ground  was  postponed  until,  by  the 
issue  of  new  shares,  $20,000  could  be 
raised.  Meanwhile  an  architects' 
competition  for  plans  resulted  in  the 
180 


carrying  off  of  the  prize  of  $1,000  by 
Mr.  George  M.  Dexter.  It  was,  at 
the  outset,  considered  that  the  plan 
must  include,  besides  the  Athenaeum 
accommodations,  lecture-rooms,  of- 
fices or  shops,  or  some  combination  of 
all  of  these,  to  yield  an  income  ade- 
quate to  the  $60,000  of  capital  in- 
vested. Eventually  this  idea  was  mod- 
ified, but  before  actual  building  was 
begun,  an  entirely  new  problem  was 
presented.  The  Tremont  Street  lot 
was  advantageously  sold,  and  the 
Edward  B.  Phillips  estate  at  loj/^ 
Beacon  Street  was  purchased  for 
$55>ooo.  Ensuing  competition  for 
plans  resulted  in  the  selection  of  one 
drawn  by  a  young  New  Hampshire 
farmer,    Edward    C.     Cabot.       This 


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PhaiO  tjy  T.  E.  Mart 


Reference  Room,  Upper  Floor 


called  for  a  structure  costing  $59,000, 
114  feet  long,  of  irr^tthr  breadth, 
and  60  .feet  high.  In  professional 
language  it  was  to  be 

**built  of  brown  freestone,  a  pronounced 
example  of  Palladian  palace  front,  high 
basement  of  rusticated  piers  and  round 
arches,  carrying  an  order  of  Corinthian 
pilasters  with  lofty  windows  between,  em- 
bellished with  pedjmented  caps." 

The  entrance  hall  was  14x10  feet 
and  the  first  story  was  to  hold  a  hall 
80  feet  long  for  exhibition  purposes, 
with  side  rooms  for  committee  meet- 
ings. The  library  was  to  fill  the  sec- 
ond story  and  its  surrounding  gal- 
leries, and  provision-  was  made  for 
stacking  150,000  volumes.  The  third 
story  was  to  be  thirteen  feet  high  with 
fine  skylight  to  afford  advantages  for 


a  picture  gallery.  Owing  to  the  youth 
and  inexperience  of  Mr.  Cabot,  it  was 
deemed  wise  to  associate  Mr.  Dexter 
with  him  for  three  years,  the  latter 
giving  his  attention  to  outdoor  detail, 
and  the  former  devoting  himself  to 
office  work.  On  April  27,  1847,  the 
corner-stone  was  laid  with  rejoicing 
and  appropriate  ceremonies.  The 
copper  box,  enclosing  coins,  docu- 
ments, etc.,  as  is  usual  in  such  cases, 
bore  upon  its  face,  besides  the  in- 
scription, the  sentiment : 

**Whenever  this  stone  shall  be  removed, 
may  it  be  only  to  improve  and  perpetu- 
ate the  Institution." 

It  is  singular  that  in  spite  of  the 
wisdom,  prudence  and  care  exercised, 
it  was  found  at  the  end  of  the  year 
that  the  entire  appropriation  of  funds 


181 


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Art  Room 


had  been  exceeded  by  $70,000,  and 
that  $50,000  more  would  be  required 
to  finish  the  interior  in  a  manner  cor- 
responding. The  error  seems  to  have 
been  the  fundamental  one  of 

"Supposing  that  such  a  substantial  and 
beautiful  building  could  be  erected  for  so 
small  a  sum  as  had  been  estimated." 

An  immediate  halt  was  called,  and 
many  alterations  in  plans  suggested. 
After  due  consideration  it  was  decided 
to  complete  the  main  library  room  ac- 
cording to  original  design, and  toplace 
an  iron  staircase  in  the  vestibule,  leav- 
ing the  rest  of  the  building  entirely 
unfinished  for  the  nonce.  Steps  were 
taken  for  the  immediate  carrying  out 
of  these  changes. 

With  the  exception  of  this  setback, 
182 


the  Athenaeum  affairs  touched  high- 
water  mark  in  the  year  1849.  Among 
the  good  things  that  came  to  it  was  a 
unique  collection  including  a  large 
part  of  George  Washington's  private 
library  and  an  ana  of  great  value.  It 
seems  that  Mr.  Henry  Stevens  of 
Vermont,  described  as  "bibliog- 
rapher and  lover  of  books,"  bought  in 
1848,  three  thousand  volumes  for 
$3,000  in  order  to  secure  800  vol- 
umes bearing  Washington's  auto- 
graph. Hearing  the  collection  could 
be  sold  in  England,  seventy  gentlemen 
of  Boston,  Cambridge  and  Salem  sub- 
scribed and  for  $4,000  secured  384 
volumes  for  the  Athenseum.  They  are 
practically  unknown  to  the  subscriber 
of  to-day,  as  want  of  space  elsewhere 


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THE   BOSTON   ATHENAEUM 


183 


keeps  them  on  the  top  floor,  where 
their  special  case  forms  a  doorway 
into  the  old  art  gallery.  One  book, 
kept  by  itself,  in  a  glass  case,  is  "A 
Discussion  of  the  Book  of  Common 
Prayer,"  written  by  Thomas  Comber 
and  printed  in  London  in  1712.  The 
binding  is  panelled  calf  and  the  first 
fly-leaf  contains  four  names,  three  of 
which  are  autographs  of  Augustine 
Washington,  of  Mary,  his  mother,  and 
of  George  when  thirteen  years  of  age, 
and  the  fourth  is  the  mother's  name 
in  George's  handwriting. 

Notwithstanding  the  complications 
arising  from  exceeding  the  building 
appropriation,  public  confidence  was 
not  one  whit  abated  in  the  int^^ty  of 
the  management.     Nor  could  it  well 
be  otherwise,  considering  the  charac- 
ter of  the  men  at  its  head.     Friends 
immediately  came  forward  with  offers 
of  practical  assistance  upon  which  they 
were  willing  to  risk  money  and  reputa- 
tion.     A   gentleman   proposed  to  be 
one  of  five,  to  take  fifty  new  shares,  if 
the  niunber  issued  amounted  to  two 
hundred  at  $300  each.     Several  pro- 
prietors were  prepared  for  additional 
assessments  of  $100  per  share,  pro- 
vided   one-half    of    their    confrhes 
would   do  likewise.     Other  projects 
were  proposed,  considered,  rejected  in 
whole  or  in  part,  until  by  patience, 
prudence  and    generous    cooperation 
the  beautiful  building,  carried  out  ac- 
cording to  the  ongixtaX  plan,  was  ready 
for  occupancy  in  1849,  ^^^  completely 
finished  the  following  year.    The  debt 
of  $112,000  was  provided  for,  and  an 
era  of  great  prosperity  opened. 

As  usual,  ofiicers  came  and  went 
without  much  disturbing  the  machin- 
ery.   From  1856  to  1867  the  Libra- 


rian's chair  was  filled  by  Mr.  William 
Frederick  Poole,  already  well  known 
as  the  author  of  an  "Index  to  Re- 
views," and  "Index  to  Periodical  Lit- 
erature"; an  invaluable  addition  to 
every  library,  and  practically  ex- 
haustive. 

Under  Mr.  Poole's  successor, 
Charles  Ammi  Cutter,  the  great  work, 
begun  by  Charles  R.  Lowell,  of  pre- 
paring a  complete  catalogue  of  the 
Athenaeum's  possessions,  was  carried 
forward.  By  1874  a  fifth  of  the  580 
pages  had  been  printed,  at  a  cost,  in- 
cluding type  and  paper,  of  $7,800,  with 
an  estimate  of  from  $13,000  to  $16,- 
000  for  the  remainder  of  the  work. 
This  official  labor  met  with  a  most 
appreciative  reception.  President  Vin- 
ton, of  Princeton,  wrote : 

"No  book  known  to  me  is  likely  to  be 
of  more  use  in  my  bibliographical  labors 
here."  * 

Trumbull  of  the  Wilkinson  Library  in 
Sartford  said: 

"The  system  of  cross-references  adopted 
will  make  it  invaluable  as  a  subject  in- 
dex." 

Winsor  of  the  Boston  Public  Library : 
"I  am  free  to  acknowledge  that  I  consider 
it  the  best  possible  catalogue  extant" 
George     Nichols,      the     well-known 
proof-reader  and  critic: 
•There  can  be  but  one  opinion  in  regard 
to  it,— that   of   warm  and   admiring    ap- 
proval in  every  particular." 
Professor  Ezra  Abbot,  former  assist- 
ant librarian  of  Harvard : 
"Take  it  all  in  all,  it  is  the  best  catalogue 
ever  printed." 

Professor  Abbot's  letter  entered  into 
details  as 

"to  excellencies,  to  references  to  treatises 
buried  in  collections,  and  exhaustive  for 
the  use  of  scholars." 


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184 


THE   BOSTON   ATHENAEUM 


So  continuously  and  richly  had  the 
affluents  swelled  the  stream  of  pros- 
perity that  in  1873  *c  treasures  again 
overflowed  the  bounds,  and  an  enlarge- 
ment of  the  borders  seemed  to  be  im- 
peratively demanded.  But  the  Libra- 
rian, Mr.  Cutter,  wrote: 

•'twenty-five  years  hence  all  this  may  be 
different.  Business  may  have  moved 
farther  south;  its  centre  may  be  above 
Boylston  Market;  the  fashionable  art 
stores,  jewellers*,  milliners*,  the  great  re- 
tail dry-good  shops  may  be  on  the  up- 
per side  of  Washington  Street,  and  ladies 
niay  no  longer  penetrate  north  to  the 
Common.  State  Street  may  be  the  seat 
of  manufacturers;  Beacon  Hill  may  be- 
come what  Fort  Hill  has  just  ceased  to 
be;  when  the  change  comes,  when  it 
shows  any  signs  of  coming,  let  the  Boston 
Athenaeum  be  removed,  but  till  then  let 
it  remain  where  it  is." 

In  accordance  with  this  opinion,  voic- 
ing that  of  a  majority  of  the  Proprie- 
tors, numerous  alterations  were  ef- 
fected that  accommodated  the  society 
until  1889. 

By  that  year  there  were  1,048  stock- 
holders, and  shares,  when  quoted, 
were  $480.  To  meet  this  new  emer- 
gency in  as  practical  and  economical 
a  way  as  possible,  the  Sumner  Stair- 
case was  sacrificed,  and  various  de- 
vices finally  adopted  that  bridged  over 
temporarily  the  impending  catas- 
trophe. The  situation  was  somewhat 
relieved,  later,  in  1876,  when  many  of 
the  paintings  and  the  superb  collection 
of  etchings  were  deposited  in  the  Mu- 
seum of  Fine  Arts  in  Copley  Square. 
Special  libraries  were  removed  to 
rooms  prepared  for  Associations  by 
which  they  were  owned,  or  for  the 
use  of  which  they  were  peculiarly 
adapted.  In  this  general  overturning 
a  lot  of  marbles  and  casts  came  to 


light,  with  neither  names  nor  traces 
of  authenticity  to  be  found  upon  them. 
Most  of  them  have  now  been  properly 
identified  by  experts  and  are  placed  in 
the  old  picture  gallery  at  the  top  of 
the  house.  There,  also,  is  the  copy  of 
Murillo's  Madonna  and  various  works 
of  art  more  or  less  valuable. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  XXth  Cen- 
tury the  recurrent  necessity  for  in- 
crease of  light,  space  and  security  from 
fire  is  greater  than  ever  before.  The 
site  contains  but  10,200  feet  of  land. 
To  be  sure  it  backs  upon  the  lovely 
old  Granary  Burying  Ground,  but 
there  is  no  redress  for  the  injury  cast 
by  the  high,  overshadowing  buildings 
on  the  other  three  sides.  Already  the 
Society  has  bought  11,200  square  feet 
on  Arlington  and  Newbury  Streets  for 
which  $22  per  foot  has  been  paid.  In 
a  competition  open  to  all,  but  with 
five  known  and  fite  unknown  archi- 
tects invited  to  compete  for  the  plans, 
the  "dark  horse"  won  the  race. 
Two  students  in  the  School  of  Tech- 
nology carried  off  the  winning  prize 
of  $1,000.  These  fortunate  youths 
are  William  E.  Putnam,  Jr.,  and  Allen 
H.  Cox. 

The  plan  is  for  a  classic  building 
with  no  useless  ornamentation.  It 
calls  for  four  stories  and  a  mezzanine, 
90  X  117,  at  a  cost  of  $400,000.  As 
some  one  has  said: 
*'a  library  is  no  longer  considered  an 
architectural  problem,  but  an  exact 
science." 

There  are,  as  was  to  be  expected,  dis- 
senting voices  among  the  Proprietors. 
Some  influential  ones  desire  to  run  the 
present  building  up  on  its  own  founda- 
tions and  thus  secure  sufficient  space 
for  their  accommodation.  They  re- 
gard a  new  building  merely  as  a  monu- 


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THE  BOSTON  ATHENAEUM 


185 


ment  to  its  architect,  while  others 
deem  the  danger  from  fire  an  immi- 
nent risk  to  be  at  once  taken  into  ac- 
count. Many  of  their  treasures  are  of 
exceptional,  and  some  of  unique,  value. 
Among  their  180,000  volumes  is  one 
of  the  very  best  sets  of  United  States 
Documents  in  the  country ;  a  large  col- 
lection of  Confederate  papers;  the 
Bemis  collection  of  works  on  interna- 
tional law,  including  State  papers;  a 
wonderfully  fine  lot  of  Oriental  Manu- 
scripts given  by  Mr.  Thomas  A.  Neal 
of  Salem,  which  were  selected  by  the 
most  celebrated  native  scholars  in  Cal- 
cutta, and  copied  under  the  donor's 
own  supervision.  There  is  a  lot  of 
Polish  books  presented  by  Miss  Eliza- 
beth Peabody;  a  copy  of  the  edition 
of  John  Eliot's  Wusku  WuUestamen- 
titm;  a  copy  of  Audubon's  Birds; 
eighty-five  volumes  of  colored  Japan- 
ese architectural  desfg^s ;  the  Arimdel 
Society's  lithographs ;  manuscripts, 
pamphlets,  and  books  given  from  the 
libraries  of  John  Quincy  Adams  and 
the  father  of  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes. 
Of  more  doubtful  value  is  a  "Life  of 


George  Walton,  highwayman,"  bound 
in  his  own  skin. 

The  largest  gifts  and  bequests  have 
been  $25,060  from  the  executors  of 
the  will  of  Samuel  Appleton  in  1853 ; 
$25,000  from  John  Bromfield,  in  1846; 
$20,000  from  George  Bemis  in  1879; 
and  $160,050  from  William  B.  Howes 
of  Beverly,  in  1879.  Robert  C.  Bil- 
ling's executors  gave  to  the  Athe- 
naeum a  permanent  fund,  amounting  to 
$10,000,  from  money  left  for  charita- 
ble purposes.  The  decision  of  the 
court  is  interesting  and  expresses  con- 
cisely the  thing  for  which  the  Athe- 
naeum stands :  "If  there  may  theoreti- 
cally exist  an  institution  whose  pur- 
poses are  purely  religious,  or  purely 
educational,  without  any  taint  of 
money-making,  which  is  nevertheless 
not  a  legal  charity,  the  Boston  Athe- 
naeum is  an  institution  for  the  encour- 
agement of  learning,  which  was  in- 
tended by  the  Legislature  to  have, 
and  does  in  fact  have,  such  a  widely 
extended  usefulness  as  to  leave  no 
doubt  that  its  purposes  are  l^^Uy 
charitable  purposes." 


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In  a  Strange  Land 


By  Emilia  Elliott 


MARTHA  stood  in  the 
kitchen  doorway,  letting 
the  light  breeze  fan  her 
fludied  face;  below  the 
sloping  yard,  the  apple  orchards  were 
a  mass  of  pink  and  white  blossoms. 
A  rested  look  crept  into  her  face.  Her 
husband  drove  into  the  yard,  drawing 
rein  before  the  door.  "Dinner 
ready?"  he  asked. 

"It  will  be,  soon's  you  get  the  horse 
put  up/'  Martha  answered,  going 
back  to  the  kitchen,  with  its  mingled 
odors  of  boiled  beef  and  cabbage. 

"My,  but  it's  hot  here,"  Jim  ex- 
claimed, when  he  came  in.  He  threw 
oflf  his  coat  and  sat  eagerly  down  to 
the  table. 

"Any  news?"  Martha  asked. 

"A  lot  of  city  folks  are  buyin'  up 
land  'long  the  Isdce.  I  had  an  oflfer  for 
the  East  meadow." 

"You  wouldn't  break  up  the  farm 
like  that?"  Martha  exclaimed  anx- 
iously. 

"Not  much.  I  told  Bill  Parsons- 
he's  lookin'  after  the  bu'sness — Fd  sell 
the  whole  place,  or  none.  That 
meadow's  the  best  bit  of  land  on  it." 

Martha's  face  whitened.  Jim  helped 
himself  liberally  to  apple  pie — 
"I'll  know  next  week.  'Tain't  likely 
any  one'll  take  up  with  the  oflfer." 

That  was  a  week  of  cruel  suspense 
to  Martha;  Jim  didn't  speak  of  the 
matter  again,  and  she  could  not  men- 
tion it  first.  She  tried  to  believe  her 
186 


fears  groundless;  it  wasn't  Ukely,  as 
Jim  said,  any  one  would  want  the 
entire  farm.  The  whole  thing  had 
come  like  a  thimderclap  out  of  a  clear 
sky;  it  had  never  occurred  to  her  that 
Jim  could  think  of  parting  with  the 
place;  it  had  been  in  the  family  for 
generations.  But  when  tlie  week  was 
up  Jim  came  home  from  town  look- 
ing excited,  and  rather  taken  aback, 
as  well. 

"The  bargain's  made,  Martha,  at  a 
good,  stiff  price,  and  an  cxtry  bit 
down,  for  immediate  possession." 

Martha  caught-hold  of  the  piazza 
railing.    "What'll  we  do?" 

"I've  been  talking  consid'rable  with 
Tom  Baxter.  We'll  go  West  with 
him,  he's  goin'  back  soon.  There's 
some  chance  for  a  fellow  with  a  bit 
of  ready  cash,  out  there.  I'm  sick  of 
farmin'.  'T wasn't  any  use  speakin'  to 
you  'til  I  saw  how  things  went.  We'll 
just  take  a  couple  of  trunks  along,  sell 
off  the  furniture,  and  get  new  out 
there." 

"You've  got  it  all  planned,"  she 
spoke  bitterly. 

"Sure,  you've  only  to  get  ready." 

During  those  hurried,  heart-rending 
days  that  followed,  Martha,  her  eyes 
blinded  with  tears,  went  sadly  about 
the  old  house.  Some  of  the  furniture 
she  had  brought  with  her  on  her  mar- 
riage, all  of  it  had  been  familiar  to  her 
since  childhood;  Jim  and  she  were 
cousins;    the    farm    had    been    their 


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IN    A   STRANGE   LAND 


187 


grandfather's  and  he  had  left  it  to 
Jim.  The  stiff,  unfriendly  parlor, 
with  its  prim,  horsehair  chairs  and 
sofa,  its  marble-topped  centre-table 
and  best  Brussels  carpet;  the  sitting- 
room,  with  its  shabby  worn  arm-chairs 
and  wide  chintz-covered  lounge;  the 
big  kitchen,  with  its  happy  childish 
memories.  And  upstairs,  the  best 
room;  her  own  room,  where  her 
children  had  been  bom — ^and  died — 
and  over  all,  the  dim,  shadowy  garret, 
with  its  stores  of  treasures,  hidden 
away  beneath  the  sloping  eaves! 
How  could  she  leave  them  all. 

She  dreaded,  too,  an  auction  in  the 
house;  shrinking  from  the  thought  of 
the  rough  feet,  the  loud  voices,  the 
curious  eyes.  The  afternoon  before 
the  sale,  while  Jim  was  in  town, 
Martha  went  up  to  the  garret.  One 
thing  she  was  determined  should  not 
be  touched  by^  stranger  hands.  Draw- 
ing from  its  place  an  old-fashioned 
cradle,  she  slipped  off  the  faded  calico 
cover,  and  kneeling  on  the  floor  be- 
side the  cradle,  Martha  lived  over 
again  that  second  winter  of  her  mar- 
ried life. 

Jim  had  been  different  then.  To 
them  both,  the  blue-eyed  baby,  crow- 
ing among  its  pillows,  had  brought  a 
joy,  too  wonderful  to  understand. 
With  the  coming  of  spring  without 
had  come  bleakness  and  dreariness 
within*  As  Martha  thought  of  those 
da3rs,  her  hand,  resting  on  the  cradle, 
rocked  it  unconsciously,  as  if  to  hush 
a  child's  low  wail. 

The  loneliness  of  the  years  that  fol- 
lowed !  Then  again  the  bliss  of  mother- 
hood; always  oversha<k)wed  by  the 
memory  of  past  loss.  She  and  Jim 
had   somehow  drifted  apart,   during 


that  time  of  trouble,  but  with  renewed 
happiness  had  come  renewed  tender- 
ness— lost  once  more,  with  their  sec- 
ond sorrow.  Martha  drew  the  cradle 
closer;  the  little  bed,  the  soft  cover- 
ings, were  in  it  still ;  she  had  made  it 
up  freshly,  before  putting  it  away. 
They  were  yellowed  now,  but  about 
them  lingered  the  faint  sweet  smell  of 
lavender.  She  seemed  to  see  two 
shadowy  little  forms  resting  'neath 
the  quilt  of  blue  and  white ;  on  the  tiny 
pillow  lay  two  small  heads — one  fair, 
the  other  dark — ^both  bonny.  A  mo- 
ment she  crouched,  swaying  the  cradle 
with  trembling  hands,  then  resolutely 
folding  up  the  bed  clothes,  and  taking 
out  the  little  bed,  she  lifted  the 
hatchet  she  had  brought  upstairs 
with  her.  One  scrap  of  the  splintered 
fragments  she  laid  with  the  pile  of 
coverings,  the  rest  she  gathered  up, 
and  carried  down  into  the  yard. 

"What've  you  been  bumin',  Mar- 
thy  ?"  Jim  asked  when  he  came  home. 
"Somethin'  from  up  garret." 
"Nothin'  we  could  Ve  sold?" 
"Nothin'  we  could  Ve  sold." 
The  afternoon  before  leaving  the 
farm,  Martha  took  time  for  a  farewell 
visit  to  some  of  her  favorite  spots. 
To  the  open  grove,  bordering  the 
lake,  where  she  and  Jim  had  picnicked 
as  children.  To  the  winding  lane,  run- 
ning to  the  broad  upper  pastures — the 
wild  roses  ran  riot  there,  in  the  early 
summer.  Last  of  all,  she  climbed 
slowly  up  to  the  grass-grown  family 
burying-ground,  and  here  she  stayed, 
until  the  western  sky  was  a  mass  of 
gold  and  crimson,  the  water  below  re- 
flecting back  the  wondrous  radiance. 
Kneeling  between  two  little  graves, 
lying  in  the  shelter  of  the  moss-cov- 


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188 


IN    A   STRANGE    LAND 


ered  stone  wall,  Martha  looked  wist- 
fully over  at  that  glory  in  the  west. 
It  was  unspeakably  hard  to  leave  the 
farm;  hardest  to  leave  her  graves^ — 
who  would  tend  them  now?  She  had 
a  feeling  that,  with  the  passing  of  the 
place  into  other  hands,  something  of 
the  ownership  of  that  quiet  bit  of  one 
of  God's  acres  went  too. 

The  long,  wearisome  journey  that 
followed  had  no  pleasure  for  Martha ; 
novelty  possessed  no  charms  for  her. 
The  strange  scenes,  the  wild  grandeur 
of  the  Rockies  when  they  reached 
them,  depressed  and  overpowered  her. 
She  had  never  before  been  a  half  day's 
journey  from  home.  Hour  after 
hour,  she  sat,  pale,  silent,  scarcely  lift- 
ing her  eyes  to  the  magnificent  scenery 
without  the  car  window;  always  be- 
fore her  the  quiet  fields,  the  sunny  lake, 
those  tiny  graves  at  home.  Jim 
wished  he  had  left  her  with  her  sister, 
Emma.    He'd  've  done  better  alone. 

It  was  towards  evening  when  the 
last  long  day's  riding  ended ;  and  their 
destination,  a  mining  camp,  in  a  nar- 
row canyon,  was  reached.  Martha, 
standing  on  the  station  platform, 
looked  about  her  with  frightened  eyes. 
It  would  have  been  better  to  go  on 
with  that  weary  riding,  rather  than 
stop  in  this  place. 

"Come  on,"  Tom  Baxter  said,  and 
Martha  followed  the  two  men  across 
the  street  to  the  hotel,  a  bare,  forlorn 
looking  building.  On  the  wide,  un- 
painted  piazza  a  group  of  men  were 
lounging.  They  eyed  the  new-comers 
curiously,  and  one — ^  tall,  broad- 
shouldered  fellow,  named  Ruben  Ty- 
ler— took  hts  pipe  from  his  mouth, 
saying:  "I'll  be  hanged,  if  that  ain't 
a  real  country  body  from  back  east. 


She  put  me  in  mind  of  my  old  home 
dVectly." 

Upstairs,  in  a  dingy,  sparely  fur- 
nished room,  Martha  stood  by  the  one 
window  utterly  miserable  and  heart- 
sick. Jim  had  gone  downstairs 
again;  Tom  had  volunteered  to  intro- 
duce him  to  some  of  the  fellows.  She 
heard  the  loud  tones,  the  coarse  laugh- 
ter. Jim  came  up  presently,  elated, 
self-complacent;  her  downcast  face 
roused  his  anger. 

"You're  a  nice,  cheerful  sort  of  per- 
son,'' he  cried.  "Can't  you  fix  up  a  lit- 
tle? WTiat  makes  you  wear  your  hair 
so  confounded  slick;  folks'U  think 
you're  my  mother." 

Martha's  hands  went  up  to  her 
smooth  bands  of  dark  hair :  "I  can  stay 
up  here,  I'd  rather,  really." 

"Nonsense^  there's  the  bell,"  Jim 
hurried  on,  waiting  grumblingly  at  the 
foot  of  the  stairs. 

The  long  supper  table  was  crowded 
with  men,  of  various  ages  and  nation- 
alities; there  were  no  other  women 
there  except  the  girls  who  waited. 
They  were  young  and  pretty,  in  a  loud 
flashy  style,  and  on  very  good  terms 
with  the  men  at  the  table.  Martha  felt 
that  they  were  laughing  at  her.  As 
soon  as  possible,  she  escaped  to  her 
room. 

"Marthy,"  Jim  said,  the  next  morn- 
ing, "I've  'bout  settled  matters.  The 
fellow  that  keeps  the  store  here  wants 
to  sell  out.  He's  lettin'  it  go  at  a  bar- 
gain. You  can  look  after  it  times 
when  I  ain't  on  hand;  It'll  keep  you 
from  bein'  homesick — " 

As  if  any  power  on  earth  could  do 
that! 

They  stopped  at  the  hotel  for  a  fort- 
night.   Jim  was  out  most  of  the  time. 


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IN    A   STRANGE   LAND 


189 


He  delighted  in  the  freedom  of  the 
new  life.  Martha's  unhappiness  was 
a  constant  affront  to  him.  He  made 
acquaintances  in  determined  fashion, 
and  was  considered  a  very  good  fel- 
low. Martha  was  declared  dull  and 
"stuck  up."  Poor  Martha,  she  had 
hcMiestly  tried  to  be  pleasant  and 
friendly,  but  the  life,  the  people,  were 
so  different  from  what  she  had  always 
known.  She  was  like  some  simple 
garden  flower,  ruthlessly  uprooted  and 
thrust  all  carelessly  into  new  and  alien 
soil. 

The  building  containing  the  store 
stood  not  far  from  the  hotel.  Long 
and  low,  with  three  living-rooms  be- 
hind the  store  itself.  Even  Jim  agreed 
the  place  hardly  fit  for  a  heathen  to 
live  in,  and  turned  to,  with  much  of 
his  old  heartiness,  to  help  Martha 
mend  matters.  For  the  moment  he 
felt  some  compunction;  it  was  not 
much  like  the  home  he  had  brought 
her  from. 

He  had  ordered  furniture  from  the 
nearest  town,  enough  to  supply  their 
immediate  wants.  Its  cheap  tawdri- 
ness  hurt  Martha's  quiet  taste.  Jim 
thought  it  fine.  "We're  up  to  date 
now,  Marthy,"  he  said,  throwing  him- 
self back  on  the  narrow  sofa,  gayly 
covered  with  multi-colored  cotton  tap- 
estr>',  edged  with  red  cotton  plush. 
"You'll  have  as  good  a  sittin'-room 
as  there's  in  this  town,  but,  unless  you 
drop  those  stand-off  ways  of  yotu^s, 
you  won't  have  any  one  sittin'  in  it." 

Martha  was  busy  draping,  the  board 
shelf  Jim  had  put  up,  with  the  home- 
made lambrequin  from  the  par- 
lor at  home.  "WeU,  I'll  have  you," 
she  said,  striving  to  speak  lightly. 

Jim's   fit  of   penitence   was  brief; 


Martha  was  left  to  fight  alone  that  in- 
describable, unendurable  feeling  of 
homesickness.  She  soon  came  to  hate 
her  surroundings  with  an  intensity 
that  surprised  herself,  to  hate  the  very 
sight  of  the  mountains,  rising  all 
around  her,  crushing  her  down,  shut- 
ting her  in.  It  seemed  to  her  as  if  the 
God  who  ruled  above  this  strange  and 
awful  country  could  not  be  the  same 
as  the  One  she  had  always  thought 
of  as  bending  in  love  and  pity  over  the 
green  meadows  and  shining  waters 
of  her  old  home.  Jim,  ill  at  ease,  and 
restless,  thrown  off  his  balance  by  this 
complete  change  in  his  manner  of  life, 
drifted  further  every  day  from  the  old 
restraining  ties.  He  was  continually 
from  home.  "He'd  never  had  his  fling, 
and  he'd  take  it  now." 

One  evening  he  came  out  to  the 
kitchen,  where  Martha  was  getting 
supper:  "Rube  Tyler's  come  to 
supper — Rube's  one  of  the  people 
here,  works  in  the  Comp'ny's  office." 

Martha  looked  frightened:  "Hadn't 
you  best  bring  out  something  from  the 
store?" 

"ITiat's  where  you're  all  off.  He 
and  his  chum  batch  it  together  in  a 
shack  of  their  own ;  he  gets  plenty  of 
store  stuff." 

Martha  made  some  hasty  prepara- 
tions, but  it  was  in  much  trepidation 
of  mind  that  she  went  to  call  Jim  and 
his  guest  to  supper.  Rube  glanced  at 
her  with  keen,  observant  eyes.  It  so 
happened  that  he  had  not  seen  her 
since  that  first  night  at  the  hotel. 
"Looks  scared !  Bet  the  scamp  bullies 
her,"  he  decided.  He  had  not  been 
very  favorably  impressed  with  Jim. 

"I  vow,  'tain't  fair,  takin'  you  so  by 
surprise,"   Rube   said,   smiling   down 


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into  Martha's  eyes,  "but  it's  mighty 
hard  for  a  man  to  refuse  a  bit  of  home 
cooking,  and  I've  been  wantin'  to 
know  you, — ^you  put  me  in  mind  of 
home,  that  night." 

"Fm  glad  you  came/'  Martha  said 
simply.  She  felt  an  instant  liking  for 
this  great,  whole-hearted  fellow.  Nor 
could  she  fail  to  be  flattered  by  his 
very  evident  appreciation  of  her  cook- 
ing. "I  declare,  it's  Hke  a  bit  of 
home,"  he  said  heartily. 

He  stayed  some  time  after  supper, 
telling  of  his  life  in  the  west.  He 
owned  to  Martha  how  homesick  he 
had  been,  seeming  to  understand  how 
she  felt. 

She  was  alone  in  the  store  a  few 
nights  later,  when  Rube  came  in. 

"Playin'  keep  shop?"  he  asked. 

"It  ain't  play  to  me;  can  I  get  you 
somethin'  ?"  Martha's  face  had  bright- 
ened.   He  told  his  errand. 

"So  you  don't  like  waitin'  on 
folks?" 

"I  wouldn't  mind  one  at  a  time,  but 
I  get  so  nervous." 

"Comes  hard,  I  dare  say." 

He  helped  her  with  his  own  pur- 
chases, folding  and  tying  with  quick, 
deft  fingers.  Two  or  three  nights 
after,  he  stopped  again.  Martha  was 
sitting  just  inside  the  parlor  doorway. 
Rube  saw  tears  in  her  eyes.  "Sit  still," 
he  said,  as  she  started  up,  "I  ain't  in 
a  mite  of  hurry.  What's  troublin' 
you?" 

This  new  note  of  sympathy  was  too 
much  for  Martha;  her  lips  quivered 
like  a  child's.  "Oh,  I  can't  bear  it," 
she  cried  piteously,  "I  hate  it  here.  I 
hate  those  cruel,  overbearing  moun- 
tains, shuttin'  out  all  of  God's  world, 
but  this  bit  of  canyon.    I  hate  the  life. 


and  the  place,  and  the  people."  She 
had  forgotten  Rube — forgotten  every- 
thing save  the  intensity  of  her  feeling 
— and  the  relief,  and,  at  the  same 
time  the  impossibility  of  expressing  it. 
"Poor  little  woman,"  Rube  said; 
"it  wasn't  right  to  bring  you  out 
here." 

Martha  looked  up,  drying  her  eyes, 
"I  oughtn't  to  have  gone  on  so.  Jim 
would  be  angjy.  Oh,  I  can't  think 
why  he  wanted  to  sell  the  farm." 

"It's  a  pity  for  you  both,"  Rube 
thought  of  the  rumors  already  cur- 
rent concerning  Jim. 

"I'm  sorry  I  bothered  you,"  Martha 
faltered,  "you're  very  good  to  me." 
"I  wish  I  could  be,  in  real  earnest." 
After  that,  when  the  waves  of  home- 
sickness swept  over  Martha,  threaten- 
ing to  engulf  her  in  their  depths, 
her  thoughts  turned  involuntarily  to 
Rube  with  his  ready  kindliness.  He 
got  in  the  habit  of  dropping  in  often. 
He  could  not  help  seeing  that  his  com- 
ing cheered  Martha,  any  more  than 
she  could  help  being  cheered  by  it. 
Sympathy  and  kindly  interest  on  the 
man's  part,  loneliness  and  gratitude 
on  the  woman's,  were  leading  these 
two  into  ways  of  which,  while  the 
beginning  might  be  pleasantness,  the 
end  could  not  be  peace.  Those  were 
troubled  weeks  for  Martha,  weeks  of 
struggling,  of  new,  strange  doubts 
and  fears.  She  had  planted  some 
seeds  in  the  bit  of  dooryard  back  of 
the  house,  and  by  dint  of  careful  nurs- 
ing they  were  doing  fairly  well.  It 
was  only  there,  among  her  flowers, 
whose  familiar  faces  reminded  her  of 
home,  that  Martha  found  anjrthing 
like  peace. 
One  evening  when  Rube  stopped, 


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he  found  her  hurrying  around,  with 
tired  face,  trying,  ratiier  unsuccess- 
fully, to  wait  on  several  custom^i's  at 
the  same  time. 

"Guess  you  need  a  little  help,"  he 
said  cheerily. 

As  by  magic  her  troubles  vanished 
— ^with  the  disappearance  of  her  last 
customer,  she  gave  a  sigh  of  relief. 
"Seem's  like  I'll  never  get  used  to 
tendin'  store,"  she  said,  "Jim  says 
'taint  nesLT^s  bad  as  a  lot  of  women, 
all  chatterin'  together,  at  sewin'  meet- 
in',  but  then,  I  never  went  much  to 
sewin'  meetin';  Jim  didn't  hold  with 
my  goin'  'way  from  home  much,  and 
he  wouldn't  have  them  to  our  place." 

Rube  swung  himself  up  on  to  the 
counter.  "My  mother  was  a  great 
hand  for  such  shindigs.  What  lots  of 
good  things  she'd  cook  up  when  they 
was  coming  to  our  house!  That  re- 
minds me.  Mis'  Baker,  when  you  goin' 
to  ask  me  to  supper  again  ?" 

"Whenever  you'd  like  to  come," 
Martha  answered,  smiling. 

"The  sooner  the  better.  Guess  to- 
night's as  good  a  time  as  any.  FU 
just  run  down  to  the  office  a  moment, 
first." 

He  had  hardly  gone  when  Jim  came 
in.  Jim  was  scowling  angrily.  "See 
here,  Marthy,"  he  cried,  "Joe  Thomas 
says  Rube  Tyler's  been  makin'  him- 
self mightily  to  home  here  to-night." 

"He's  been  helpin'  me  some." 

"Well,  I  won't  have  any  such  doin's, 
makin'  folks  think  I  overwork  you." 

"I  can't  hinder  them  thinkin'." 

"You  can  too.  Rube  Tyler's 
hangin'  'bout  here  a  deal  too  much," 
Jim  b^^  to  feel  his  wife  to  blame 
for  his  own  shortcomings.  She  could 
make  it  pleasant  enough  for  every  one 


except  her  own  husband !  He  turned 
sullenly  away.  "I  won't  be  back  to 
supper,"  he  said  shortly. 

"Jim,  please  come,"  she  was  afraid 
then  to  tell  him  why,  better  let  it  ap- 
pear as  if  Rube  had  dropped  in  by  ac- 
cident. 

"I  tell  you  I  won't,"  Jim  answered. 

Martha  stood  uncertain.  She  must 
tell  Rube,  probably  he  wouldn't  stay. 

Rube  received  the  announcement 
very  calmly.  "I  know,  I  met  him 
down  street,  with  Tom  Baxter;  I 
reckon  we'll  manage  without  him  all 
right." 

So  he  meant  to  stay;  she  felt  both 
glad  and  sorry.  In  spite  of  misgiv- 
ings, Martha  enjoyed  that  supper. 
Rube  was  eager  to  hear  about  her  old 
life,  back  east,  of  the  days  before  her 
marriage.  "I  wish  to  goodness  I'd 
known  you  then,"  he  blurted  out  at 
last.  "Life's  mighty  queer.  Why 
couldn't  you  and  me  've  known  each 
other  then?" 

Martha  tried  to  smile:  "I  reckon 
'twasn't  meant  we  should." 

Rube  leaned  towards  her;  through 
the  open  window  came  the  scent  of 
mignonette,  and  other  sweet  old-fash- 
ioned garden  flowers.  "Marthy,  if  we 
had  've  met  then  I  wonder  would 
you  've  liked  a  big  clumsy  fellow,  like 
me?" 

A  sudden  sob  rose  in  Martha's 
throat :  "Rube,  don't !  we  didn't  meet." 

"You  ain't  happy,  Marthy,  I  know 
you  ain't.  If  you  was  I  wouldn't  say 
a  word." 

"Rube,  you  mustn't;  you  frighten 
me  so." 

"I  don't  want  to  do  that,  you  poor 
little  mite.    Shall  I  go  now?" 

She  nodded. 


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IN   A   STRANGE   LAND 


"I'd  like  a  posy  first,  Marthy." 
She  hesitated,  then  led  the  way  out 
to  the  little  garden.  Rube  watched 
her  silently,  as  she  bent  over  the  flow- 
ers, wondering  why  she  held  the  clus- 
ter of  purple  pansies  and  gay  sweet 
peas  tightly  for  a  moment  before 
handing  them  to  him.  Perhaps  she 
hardly  knew  herself.  She  had  an  odd 
feeling  that  henceforth  the  quiet  peace 
of  that  tiny  spot  would  be  lost,  now 
that  Rube  had  stood  there  with  her. 

The  next  time  Rube  came  to  the 
store,  Jim  was  there.  Jim  eyed  him 
sulkily,  paying  no  heed  to  his  good- 
natured  salutation.  After  that  Jim 
seemed  always  on  hand.  Had  he 
turned  over  a  new  leaf?  At  any  rate, 
he  hadn't  improved  as  to  temper, 
judging  from  Martha's  worried  face 
and  tired  eyes.  Jim  felt  his  hold  over 
his  wife  weakening.  The  patient  sub- 
mission, that  of  late  years  had  served 
in  the  place  of  the  old  affection,  to 
bind  her  to  him,  was  slowly  disap- 
pearing. Stung  by  this  knowledge 
and  determined  by  sheer  force  to  win 
back  his  authority  over  her,  he  grew 
daily  more  tyrannical  and  exacting. 

Rube,  wh*ose  liking  for  Martha  had 
sprung  in  the  first  place  from  pity, 
looked  on  with  troubled  eyes.  Poor 
little  woman,  she  was  having  hard 
lines  of  it !  But,  day  by  day,  turning 
more  and  more  to  him,  trying  to  con- 
quer, too,  her  growing  feeling  for  him. 
What  use?  Why  not  take  the  scanty 
goods  the  gods  provided,  not  ques- 
tioning too  closely  the  manner  of  their 
coming? 

Rube  was  living  alone  now,  his 
chum  having  lately  married,  and  set 
up  housekeeping    on  a  more  preten- 


tious scale.  For  a  week  or  two,  he 
kept  away  from  the  store;  Martha 
wondered  why  he  did  not  come. 
Would  he,  too,  fail  her?  And  when, 
one  evening,  as  she  sat  alone  in  the 
dusky  parlor,  he  suddenly  appeared, 
she  could  not  keep  the  gladness  out 
of  face  and  voice. 

"Been  gettin'  on  well?"  he  asked. 

"As  well's  usual,"  Martha's  voice 
changed. 

"I've  come  to  ask  a  favor  of  you, 
Marthy.  Dick's  off  for  himself — and 
it's  time  I  was  settlin'  down;  I'll 
be  forty  next  March  It's  sort  of  lone- 
some, too,  up  there  now,  and  T  can't 
abide  the  hotel.  I've  been  makin'  a 
few  changes ;  the  person  I've  in  mind's 
a  tidy,  nice-mannered  little  body,  and 
I  thought  maybe  you'd  come  up  and 
lode  round  a  bit  and  see  if  things  was 
all  right." 

"I'd  like  to  do  an)rthing  I  could  for 
you."  She  was  glad  it  was  too  dark 
for  him  to  see  the  tears  in  her  eyes. 
"It'll  have  to  be  to-morrow,  Sunday. 
Jim  won't  be  home.  I  couldn't  make 
him  understand.  He — ^he  found  out 
'bout  that  supper  that  night,  it  made 
him  awful  mad." 

"I'm  ever  so  much  obliged,"  Rube 
said,  rising  to  go,  "I'll  meet  you  where 
the  path  runs  up  back  of  the  office — 
it'll  save  talk — not  that  I  care  for 
myself  how  folks  talk." 

Martha  sighed  wearily:  "I  don't 
know's  I  do  much,  I'm  too  tired  to 
care  'bout  anythin'." 

Rube  was  waiting  for  her  the  next 
afternoon.  They  had  a  steep,  upward 
climb,  and  Martha  was  glad  to  sink 
down,  breathless,  on  the  little  porch 
before  the  cabin.  Rube  brought  a  big 
wicker  rocking-chair  and  a  footstool. 


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She  looked  up  gratefully:  "You 
mustn't  fuss  over  me,  I  ain't  used  to 
it  now-a-days." 

"You  ought  to  be,"  he  answered 
bluntly. 

"It's  nice  up  here,"  Martha  said 
hurriedly;  "how  small  everythin'  looks 
down  below." 

When  she  was  rested  he  took  her 
indoors;  there  were  two  fair-sized 
rooms,  and  a  tiny  lean-to.  Rube's 
efforts  at  adornment  were  simple, 
almost  pathetic.  He  had  papered  the 
cabin  newly  himself,  and,  by  either 
happy  chance  or  good  instinct,  had 
chosen  patterns  not  out  of  keeping 
with  the  rest  of  the  homely  furnish- 
ings. "I'm  goin'  to  put  some  shelves 
up  at  the  windows  for  plants,"  he  said, 
''she's  terrible  fond  of  plants." 

"You've  fixed  it  up  beautifully;  Fm 
sure  she'll  be  happy." 

"It's  lonely  up  here;  there  wouldn't 
be  any  one  comin'  and  goin'." 
"She'll  have  you." 
"I  ain't  sure  she'll  come,"  Rube 
spoke  slowly.  "She's  the  one  woman 
in  the  world  to  me.  I'll  be  mighty 
good  to  her,  but  I  ain't  quite  sure's 
I've  got  the  right  to  ask  her.  It'd 
mean  a  good  deal  to  her." 

Then  Martha  understood.  The 
color  'flooded  her  face.  "No,  don't 
ask  her,"  she  cried,  "for  fear  she 
might  not  have  strength  to  say  no. 
Oh,  she  must  be  a  wcked  woman  fdr 
you  to  think  such  a  thing." 

Rube  caught  the  trembling  hands: 
"I  swear  she  ain't  wicked.  I  love  her, 
and  she  loves  me ;  she  ain't  happy,  her 
life's  such  a  hard  one.  I  swear  it 
wouldn't  be  wrong;  things  've  got 
horribly  twisted,  Marthy,"  he  held  her 
close.    "Marthy,  won't  you  come?" 


"Rube,  let  me  go.  My  God,  what 
have  1  come  to !  There  was  a  girl  at 
home  once,  who — to  think  I  blamed 
her!" 

Rube  let  her  go;  she  darted  from 
him  out  of  the  cabin  and  down  the 
rough,  narrow  footpath.  Rube  fol- 
lowed, keeping  her  in  sight  down  the 
mountain.  He  did  not  try  to  speak 
to  her  again  then.  Near  the  foot  he 
drew  back;  Jim  had  come  in  sight. 
For  Martha's  sake  Rube  hoped  he  had 
not  been  seen.  "If  it  had  not  been  for 
her" — he  clenched  his  hands  tightly. 

He  went  for  a  long,  rapid  walk. 
When  he  reached  the  cabin  again  the 
dusk  was  coming  on.  On  the  porch 
sat  Martha,  a  bundle  in  her  lap. 

She  looked  up  pitifully:  "Jim 
wouldn't  let  me  stay.  He  wanted  to 
know  where  I'd  been.  He  wouldn't 
believe  me  that — that — he  says  he  isn't 
goin'  to  stay  at  the  store  any  longer. 
I  didn't  know  what  to  do." 

Rube  sat  down  beside  her,  taking 
one  of  her  hands  in  his. 

She  shuddered:  "I  never  thought 
my  life  would  end  like  this.  Some 
day  you'll  scorn  me  for  comin'." 

"Marthy!" 

"If  you  do,  it'll  kill  me.  Jim  says 
I've  driven  him  to  the  bad." 

"Jim  lied.  He  went  there  of  his 
own  free  will,  some  time  ago. 
Marthy,  can't  you  see,  he's  only  too 
glad  of  an  excuse  to  get  rid  of  you." 

Rube  rose.  "Come  inside,  I'm  go- 
in'  to  make  you  a  cup  of  tea." 

"I'd  rather  wait  here,  please."  She 
sat  with  folded  hands,  looking  over  at 
the  mountains  opposite;  the  sunset 
glow  was  fading,  but  in  the  western 
sky  a  faint  radiance  still  lingered. 
Martha's  tlioughts  went  back  to  that 


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IN  AFTER  YEARS 


last  afternoon  in  the  old  family  bury- 
ing-ground ;  suddenly  turning,  she  un- 
did the  bundle  at  her  side,  taking  from 
it  the  fragment  of  cradle,  the  bits  of 
bed-clothes.  How  far  she  had  drifted 
since  the  day  she  bent  over  her  treas- 
ures in  the  garret,  had  drifted,  must 
still  drift!  Under  her  breath  she  re- 
peated the  words,  through  all  these 
months  so  often  in  her  mind : 

"  'By  the  rivers  of  Babylon  there  we 
sat  down,  yea,  we  wept  when  we  re- 
membered Zion/  " 

How  often,  when  Jim  had  re- 
proached her  with  being  dull  and  stu- 
pid, had  the  words  of  the  old  plaint 
echoed  in  her  thoughts: 

"  Tor  there  they  that  carried  us 
away  captive  required  of  us  a  song,' 
and  'How  shall  we  sing  in  a  strange 
land?'" 

Ah,  it  had  been  "a  strange  land," 
and  no  longer  would  she  be  able  to 
say :  "If  I  forget  thee."  She  was  for- 
getting, doing  that  which  must  ever 
stand  between  her  and  the  memory  of 
past,  happier  days,  between  her  and 
the  memory  of  those  later  ones  when 
she  had  knelt,  broken-hearted,  beside 
her  little  graves. 

When  Rube  came  out,  she  met  him 
wildly:  "Rube,  let  me  go;  think  for 
me  before  it  is  too  late,  and  I  leave  my 
babies  behind  forever !" 


He  tried  to  soothe  her. 

"I  can't  stay,"  she  sobbed,  "if  I 
could  get  work;  Rube,  help  me!" 

Rube's  brow  knitted.  Through  the 
open  door  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the 
little  sitting  room,  warm  and  bright. 
Then  he  felt  her  deep,  shuddering 
sobs  and  heard  the  low  cry:  "My 
babies,  my  babies!" 

"Marthy,"  he  lifted  her  face  gently, 
"I'm  goin'  to  take  you  down  to  the 
hotel  for  to-night;  they'll  make  you 
comfortable  when  I  explain.  To-mor- 
row I'll  start  you  homewards.  Ill 
wire  your  friends  to  meet  you;  and 
tell  the  conductor  to  look  after  you. 
You  won't  have  a  bit  of  worry." 

"But  the  money?" 

"Y'ou'll  let  me  give  you  that  much. 
Now  drink  your  tea,  and  then  you 
shall  go."  He  spoke  as  to  a  tired 
child,  an<i  like  a  child  she  obeyed 
him. 

At  the  foot  of  the  mountain  path  she 
suddenly  clung  to  him:  "You  are  so 
good, — so  good." 

It  was  late  when  he  reached  his 
cabin  again.  On  the  floor  of  the 
bright  little  sitting-room  lay  a  wo- 
man's glove.  Rube  caught  it  up, 
and  going  to  the  doorway  he  stood 
looking  down  the  canyon,  to  where 
in  the  distance  the  lights  of  the  hotd 
glimmered  through  the  darkness. 


In  After  Years 

By  Clarence  H.  Umer 

HER  heart  ran  down  her  hueless  cheek  in  tears, 
In  sobs  her  soul  beat  out  its  bitter  grief; 
But  onward  stole  the  velvet-footed  years 
With  poppies  in  their  hands  to  bring  relief. 


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THE  his- 
tory of 
the  old 
North- 
west b^ns  a  s 
early  as  that  of 
Canada  and  Vir- 
ginia, and  many 
years  before  the 
Pilgrim     fathers 

landed  at  Plymouth  the  French  ex- 
plorers and  missionaries  were  making 
their  way  through  the  forests  of  cen- 
tral Canada  and  along  Lake  Huron. 
The  history  of  Detroit  is  closely  inter- 
woven with  that  of  the  whole  North- 
west, for  its  settlement  is  one  of  the 
earliest  in  America. 

Three  principal  objects  inspired  the 
hearts  of  the  French  settlers  in 
Canada, — fur  trading,  to  find  a  route 
to  China  and  the  Indies,  and  to  con- 
vert the  North  American  Indians  to 
Christianity.  With  these  objects  in 
view,  the  Frenchmen  pressed  on  west- 
ward and  according  to  tradition  as 
early  as  1612  Champlain  passed 
through  the  strait  which  is  now  the 
Detroit  River.  The  state  of  Michigan 
is  a  part  of  the  territory  held  under 
the  government  of  New  France  and 
Louisiana,  and  the  French  priests  es- 
tablished mission  stations  along  the 
borders  of  the  lakes  at  an  early  date. 
In  1648  Marquette  founded  his  mis- 
sions at  Michillimackinac  and  St. 
Ignace,  and  Joliet  is  said  to  have 
passed  down  the  lakes  and  through 
the  strait ;  but  Lasalle  ia  the  first  civil- 


By  Helen  E.  Keep 


ized  person 
known  to  have 
been  at  the  site  of 
the  present  city  of 
Detroit. 

In  1 67 1  this 
great  explorer, 
with  two  Jesuit 
priests,  Dollier  de 
Casson  and  Ga- 
lenee,  and  a  Seneca  Indian  guide, 
wintered  on  the  north  shore  of  Lake 
Erie,  and  when  the  ice  broke  in 
the  spring,  crossed  the  lake  in  canoes 
and  went  up  the  river.  They  saw  wig- 
wams clustered  in  the  bordering 
forests,  and  near  Detroit  they  found 
a  rude  stone  image,  worshipped  as  a 
fetich  by  the  Indians.  A  few  years 
later  Lasalle  was  authorized  by  the 
French  government  to  spend  five 
years  in  exploration  in  America,  and 
he  with  his  friend  Henry,  Chevalier 
de  Tonty,  whose  name  appears  on  the 
earliest  records  of  Michigan,  went  to 
Niagara  Falls,  and  there  built  a  ves- 
sel in  which  to  sail  through  the  Great 
Lakes.  This  boat,  Le  Griffon,  was  the 
first  ever  sailed  on  Lake  Erie  and  the 
upper  lakes.  Three  priests  and  sev- 
eral others,  with  Indian  guides,  ac- 
companied Lasalle  on  this  famous 
voyage,  an  account  of  which  was 
written  by  Father  Hennepin.  On  Au- 
gust 10,  1679,  Le  Griffon  was  an- 
chored at  the  mouth  of  the  strait.  He 
tells  us  that  several  Frenchmen  had 
been  sent  forward  in  canoes  "to  a 
place  called  Detroit,"  and  were  joined 


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the  next  day  by  Lasalle  and  De 
Tonty.  The  whole  party  after  a  few 
hours  there  sailed  on,  and  August  12, 
Ste.  Claire's  Day,  they  entered  the 
lake  at  the  head  of  the  river  and 
named  it  after  the  saint. 

This  whole  section  of  country  is 
rich  in  legendary  lore,  and  the  weird 
stories  have  been  handed  down  from 
generation  to  generation  by  those 
whose  ancestors  came  from  France 
years  before,  and  wove  with  the  In- 
dian legends  their  own  poetic  tales 
which  had  been  told  around  the 
hearths  in  Normandy.  The  great  In- 
dian Spirit  of  the  lakes  was  the  Mani- 
tou,  who  commanded  the  storms  and 
the  waves.  Incensed  at  the  exhibition 
of  idolatry,  the  priests  with  Lasalle 
on  the  first  visit  to  Detroit  broke  in 
pieces  the  idol  which  they  found  dedi- 
cated to  the  great  Spirit  and  threw 
them  into  the  deepest  part  of  the  river. 
The  Indians  were  from  that  time  the 
enemies  of  the  white  man,  and  when- 
ever the  Griffon  neared  the  shore  their 
hostile  cries  were  heard.  After  the 
vessel  reached  I^ke  Superior  it  was 
loaded  with  furs  and  started  on  the 
return  voyage.  What  became  of  it  is 
uncertain,  but  the  Indian  tradition 
tells  of  the  angry  Manitou  sending  it 
into  unknown  waters,  and  on  moon- 
light nights  the  phantom  ship  is  seen, 
and  voices  are  heard  chanting  the 
evening  hymn. 

In  1687  Duluth  built  a  fort  near  the 
entrance  of  Lake  Huron,  which  was 
at  first  called  "Fort  Detroit,"  after- 
wards "Fort  St.  Joseph."  This  was 
probably  nothing  more  than  a  block 
house,  and  was  used  for  a  place  of 
meeting  and  conference  with  the  In- 
dians. In  1697  De  Tonty  and  La 
Foret  were  at  Fort  Detroit  with  orders 


from  the  governor  general  of  Canada 
to  gather  together  the  Indians  in  that 
section  and  to  declare  war  against  the 
Five  Nations.  The  battle  of  the  Iro- 
quois was  fought  on  the  shore  of  Lake 
Erie,  but  the  centre  of  operation  for 
the  French  and  the  northern  tribes  was 
at  Fort  Detroit  and  along  the  strait. 

Up  to  this  time  no  regular  settle- 
ment on  the  strait  had  been  thought 
of.  Michillimackinac  had  become  a 
missionary  post  and  a  depot  of  sup- 
plies for  the  fur  traders  on  their  way 
north.  To  reach  Mackinac  the  traders 
had  gone  through  the  St.  Lawrence, 
the  Ottawa  River  and  Lake  Huron. 
When  the  New  England  and  New 
York  coasts  were  inhabited  by  civil- 
ized people,  the  strait — detroit — ^began 
to  be  important.  It  was  the  connec- 
tion with  the  upper  lakes  and  was  the 
easiest  passage  from  Canada  to  the 
Mississippi  Valley  and  Louisiana. 
The  possession  of  this  pass  meant  the 
control  of  the  Northwest  and  the  fur 
trade.  Cadillac,  commandant  at 
Michillimackinac  from  1695  to  1699, 
first  conceived  the  idea  that  Detroit 
was  a  better  place  for  a  fort,  and  dur- 
ing the  years  at  Mackinac  he  prepared 
plans  for  the  later  settlement. 

The  birthplace  of  Antoine  de  la 
Mothe  Cadillac,  the  founder  of  De- 
troit, is  uncertain.  It  has  been  said 
that  he  was  a  native  of  Gascony.  On 
the  authority  of  the  parish  records  of 
Quebec  his  father  was  Jean  de  la 
Mothe,  Seigneur  de  Cadillac,  de 
Launay,  de  Semontel,  conseilleur  of 
the  parliament  of  Toulouse,  and  his 
mother  was  Jeanne  de  Malenfant. 
His  letters  and  writings  show  tliat  he 
had  a  good  education,  and  he  entered 
the  army  at  an  early  age,  serving  as  a 
cadet  in  the  regiment  of  Dampierre 


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and  as  a  lieutenant  in  the  regiment 
of  Clairembault  in  1677.  In  1683  he 
first  visited  New  France  and  became 
a  settler  at  Port  Royal.  Five  years 
later  he  married,  at  Quebec,  Marie 
Therese  Guyon,  daughter  of  Jean 
Guyon  and  Elizabeth  Boucher,  bom 
April  9,  167 1.    The  next  year  he  was 

given  the  island  of  Mt.  Desert  and  a 
large  tract  of  land  called  Donequec 
or  Donequet,  in  the  present  state  of 
Maine.  In  the  list  of  names  of  resi- 
dents on  Mt.  Desert  in  1688  are  "Ca- 
dalick  and  wife."  It  1689  he  was 
again  in  France  at  the  court  of 
Louis  XIV  assisting  in  forming  plans 
for  the  capture  and  destruction  of 
New  York  and  Boston.  While  he 
was  in  France  Port  Royal  was  sur- 
rendered to  Sir  William  Phips  and  his 

property  was  destroyed.  The  next 
year  Cadillac  returned  to  Canada  with 
a  recommendation  to  the  governor. 
Count  Frontenac. 

"Sicur  de  Lamothe  Cadillac,  a  gentle- 
man of  Acadia,  having  been  ordered  to 
embark  for  the  service  of  the  king,  on  the 
Embuscade,  in^ich  vessel  brought  him  to 
France,  his  majesty  being  informed  that 
during  his  absence  his  habitation  was 
ruined,  hopes  that  Frontenac,  the  new 
governor  of  Canada,  will  find  it  con- 
venient to  give  him  such  employment  as 
he  may  find  proper  for  his  services,  and 
that  he  will  assist  him  if  he  can."* 

In  1692  the  king  sent  for  Cadillac 
to  come  again  to  France  to  give  in- 
formation for  the  proposed  attack  on 
Boston  and  New  York,  and  he  drew 
up  a  report  on  the  subject  showing  a 
tliorough  knowledge  of  the  coast 
towns  and  inhabitants.  This  report 
has  been  printed  in  part  in  the  Maine 
Historical  Collections.  In  return  for 
his  many  services  to  the  government 
he  was  made  captain  of  troops,  ensign 


of  the  navy  and  created  knight  of  the 
military  order  of  St.  Louis. 

Count  Frontenac  and  Cadillac  be- 
came intimate  friends,  and  the  gov- 
ernor in  1695  appointed  him  com- 
mandant at  Michillimackinac.  Al- 
ways animated  by  a  spirit  of  adven- 
ture, he  had  plenty  of  time  in  this 
place  to  study  his  surroundings  and 
plan  for  further  explorations  into  the 
wilds,  and  it  became  his  desire  to  find 
a  more  advantageous  place  than 
Mackinac  for  a  fort  to  resist  the  Eng- 
lish. About  1700  he  went  in  person 
to  Versailles,  France,  to  see  Count 
Pontchartrain,  the  Colonial  minister, 
to  present  to  him  the  subject  of  con- 
structing a  fort  on  the  strcUt'dStroit. 
King  Louis  XIV  approved  of  the  plan 
and  Cadillac  was  given  a  grant  of 
land  of  150  acres  for  the  new  fort. 

The  following  year  he  returned  to 
Montreal,  and  after  much  preparation 
he  with  his  comrades,  making  their 
way  through  the  Ottawa  River, 
Georgian  Bay,  Lake  Huron  and  Lake 
St.  Clair,  arrived  at  Detroit,  July  24, 
1 701,  The  party  consisted  of  Antoine 
de  LaMothe  Cadillac,  Monsieur  dc 
Tonty,  as  captain,  Dugue  and  Cha- 
comacle,  lieutenants,  with  fifty  sol- 
diers, fifty  emigrants  and  two  Jesuits. 
Two  days  after  landing,  on  the  twenty- 
sixth  of  July,  the  feast  of  Ste.  Anne's, 
the  priests  held  religious  services,  Ste. 
Anne's  Church  was  dedicated,  and  for 
the  first  time  at  Detroit  mass  was  cele- 
brated. 

Cadillac  proved  himself  a  man  of 
great  executive  ability,  and  work  at 
settlement  was  immediately  begun 
trees  were  cut  down,  the  stockade  and 
fort  were  made,  houses  and  a  mill 
were  built.     The  palisaded  enclosure 


•Li/t  0/Cmdi/iac,  by  C.  M.  Burton. 


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was  about  two  hundred  feet  square 
and  was  called  "Fort  Pontchartrain" 
in  honor  of  the  Colonial  minister. 

In  August  Madame  Cadillac  and 
the  wife  of  Tonty  left  Montreal  in 
open  canoes  with  Indians  and  canoe 
men  as  companions.  They  wintered 
at  Fort  Frontenac,  now  Kingston,  and 
early  in  the  spring  arrived  at  Detroit, 
coming  by  way  of  Niagara.  Three  of 
Cadillac's  daughters  were  left  in  Que- 
bec at  an  Ursuline  Convent,  his  son, 
Antoine  de  LaMothe  Cadillac,  was  al- 
ready at  Detroit,  and  Jacques,  bom  in 
1695,  came  with  his  mother.  The 
births  of  the  other  children  were  re- 
corded in  the  Ste.  Anne's  Church  rec- 
ords. A  son,  Joseph  LaMothe  Cadil- 
lac, became  an  advocate  in  Parliament. 
Though  all  of  the  sons  married  and 
had  children,  none  of  the  grandsons 
lived,  and  there  are  now  no  descend- 
ants of  Cadillac  bearing  his  name.  At 
various  times  after  Cadillac  left  De- 
troit, attempts  were  made  by  himself 
and  his  heirs  to  recover  his  property, 
but  they  were  unsuccessful.  A  grand- 
daughter, Marie  Therese  Cadillac, 
married  her  cousin,  Bartholemy  de 
Gr^oire,  at  Castell  Sarrazin,  France, 
and  after  the  death  of  Cadillac  came 
to  America  to  prosecute  their  claims 
to  the  lands  granted  to  him  on  the 
coast  of  Maine  and  in  Detroit.  The 
grant  in  Maine  was  about  185,000 
acres  and  included  Mt.  Desert  and  the 
neighboring  islands.  The  greater 
part  of  this  Madame  Gregoire  ob- 
tained, but  her  rights  to  the  Detroit 
property  were  never  established. 

Antoine  de  LaMothe  Cadillac  at 
Detroit  took  the  position  of  an  arbi- 
trary ruler.  In  a  certificate  filed  by 
him  in  Ste.  Anne's  Church  he  styled 
himself  "Lord  of  the  places  of  Done- 


quet,  and  Mt.  Desert,  Commander  of 
the  icing's  forces  at  Fort  Pontchart- 
rain."  Every  public  as  well  as  every 
private  transaction  was  made  in  his 
presence  as  a  solenm  witness  and  re- 
corder. During  his  rule  there  were 
about  four  hundred  people  in  Detroit, 
many  of  whom  had  come  with  Cadil- 
lac and  Tonty  at  the  first  settlement. 
Some  of  the  names  are  still  familiar : 
Campau,  Chesne,  Cicotte,  LaFerte, 
Renaud,  Casse  (dit  St.  Aubin),  Rio- 
pelle,  Moran,  Guion,  DeMarsac  and 
Chauvin.  In  1710  Cadillac  was  ap- 
pointed governor  of  Louisiana  and 
left  Detroit,  and  seven  years  later  re- 
turned to  France,  dying  at  Castell 
Sarrazin,  October  16,  1730. 

De  La  Foret  was  Cadillac's  succes- 
sor, but  before  he  arrived  from  Que- 
bec the  first  serious  trouble  with  the 
Indians  occurred,  when  sixty-seven 
friendly  Indians  and  Frenchmen,  and 
a  thousand  of  the  enemy  were  killed 
and  wounded  in  an  engagement  with 
the  Outagamies.  After  this  there  was 
constant  trouble  with  the  savages, 
some  of  whom  were  cannibal,  and 
almost  all  unfriendly.  The  priests 
from  the  beginning  had  established 
mission  posts  among  them,  but  though 
some  of  the  Indians  joined  the  French 
there  was  continual  hostility. 

This  little  band  of  people  at  Fort 
Pontchartrain  were  miles  away  from 
all  other  civilization,  and  for  several 
years  it  was  doubtful  whether  the  fort 
could  be  sustained.  Supplies  had  to 
be  brought  from  Montreal  at  great 
expense  and  labor.  The  Indians  were 
troublesome,  and  no  help  in  case  of  an 
emergency  could  be  looked  for  from 
adjoining  districts.  In  1709  the  king 
withdrew  the  soldiers  and  many  fam- 
ilies left  with  them.    For  ten  years  the 


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At  Grosse  Pointe  Farms 

little  settlement  barely  held  its  own, 
the  births  averaging  only  two  a  year, 
but  in  1/22  when  the  Western  coun- 
ty' along  the  Mississippi  was  opened, 
emigrants  began  to  join  the  colony 
and  soon  the  number  of  inhabitants 
again  reached  two  hundred.  The 
Chapetons  were  among  the  families 
who  came  at  this  time. 

In  1721  Charlevoix  visited  Detroit 
and  recommended  that  emigrants  be 
sent  from  Montreal. 

He  said: 

'*It  is  pretended  that  this  is  the  finest  part 
of  all  Canada,  and  really  if  we  can  judge 
by  appearances,  nature  seems  to  have 
denied  it  nothing  which  can  make  a  coun- 
try delightful ;  hills,  meadows,  fields,  lofty 
forests,  rivulets,  fountains,  rivers,  and  all 
of  them  so  excellent  of  their  kind  and  so 
happily  blended  as  to  equal  the  most  ro- 
mantic wishes.  The  Islands  seem  placed 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  prospect,  the  river 
and  the  lake  abound  in  fish,  the  air  is 
pure  and  the  climate  temperate  and  ex- 
tremely  wholesome." 

Other  visitors  to  the  post  began  to 
send  in  glowing  accounts  to  the  Ca- 
nadian governor  and  to  the  French 
ministers.  It  was  said  that  with  a 
farming  population  "this  post  would 
become  considerable  in  a  short  time 
and  by  its  strength  keep  all  the  nations 
of  the  upper  country  in  check." 
,  In.  1 748  the  Ohio  Company  was 
formed  and  the  country  south  began 
to  be  populated.  The  governor  gen- 
eral of  Canada,  realizing  the  advan- 


tageous situation  of  Fort  Pont- 
chartrain,  and  wishing  to  promote 
emigration,  issued  the  following 
proclamation  through  the  Canadian 
settlements : 

"Every  man  who  will  go  to  settle  in 
Detroit  shall  receive  gratuitously,  one 
spade,  one  axe,  one  ploughshare,  one  large 
and  one  small  wagon.  We  will  make  an 
advance  of  other  tools  to  be  paid  for  in 
two  years  only.  He  will  be  given  a  Cow, 
of  which  he  shall  return  the  increase,  also 
a  Sow.  Seed  will  be  advanced  the  first 
year  to  be  returned  at  the  third  harvest. 
The  women  aixi  children  will  be  supported 
one  year.  Those  will  be  deprived  of  the 
liberality  of  the  King,  who  shall  give 
themselves  up  to  trade  in  place  of  agricul- 
ture." * 

The  result  of  this  proclamation  was 
the  arrival  of  some  three  hundred 
people,  and  the  population  soon 
reached  six  hundred.  Many  of  these 
new    settlers   were    from    Normandy 


•  From  History  0/  Dttroit^  by  Silas  Fanner. 


Old  Campau  House 

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PoNTiAC  Tree  at  Bloody  Run 

and  from  Montreal.  Farms  were 
granted  on  either  side  of  the  Detroit 
River  having  narrow  river  frontage 
and  extending  back  two  miles.  Traces 
of  these  settlers  remain  and  several  of 
the  old  French  cottages  are  still  stand- 
ing east  of  the  city  near  Grosse 
Pointe.  Many  of  the  streets  running 
north  from  the  river  in  the  eastern 
section  of  the  city  are  near  the  orig- 
inal farm  divisions  and  bear  the  names 
of  the  owners  of  the  farms,  Rivard, 
Riopelle,  Dubois,  Chene,  Joseph  Cam- 
j)au,  Dequindre,  St.  Aubin  and  others. 
Supplies  were  sent  from  France, 
farming  implements,  seeds  and  enough 
young  fruit  trees,  apple  and  pear,  to 
start  orchards  which  lined  the 
shores  of  the  river.  From  these 
orchards  have  originated  some  well- 
known  apples,  the  "Detroit  Red," 
the  russet,  and  the  Pomme  de  neige  or 
"Snow  apple."  The  old  French  pear 
trees  were,  however,  far  more  remark- 


able. Of  great  size,  shaped  like  elms, 
they  produced  from  seventy  to  eighty 
bushels  a  season.  Some  of  them  were 
eighty  feet  high  and  had  a  circumfer- 
ence of  eight  or  nine  feet.  Each  far- 
mer had  one  or  more  near  his  cottage. 
Nothing  beyond  the  fact  of  the  exist- 
ence of  these  trees  is  known,  and 
though  many  Detroiters  have  tried  to 
find  their  origin,  the  few  still  standing 
are  the  only  specimens  to  be  found. 
Traditions  differ.  It  is  said  that  the 
seed  was  brought  from  France  and 
planted  by  the  Jesuits,  also  that  the 
small  trees  were  brought  from  Nor- 
mandy. Whatever  may  be  their  his- 
tory, the  secret  is  lost  and  they  cannot 
now  be  propagated.  Only  a  few  of 
Ihe  old  trees  remain  and  each  year 
sees  the  number  grow  less,  the  trees 
and  the  French  habitant  are  going  to- 
gether, 

"And   when   these   ancient  trees  are  gone 

which  those  old  heroes  set. 
The  noisy  waves  shall  chant  their  praise, 
though  men  their  names  forget." 


Bloody  Run 


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When  the  English  banished  the 
Acadians  from  Nova  Scotia  some  of 
the  fugitives  came  to  Detroit,  though 
most  of  them  afterwards  joined  their 
friends  at  Vincennes,  Mobile  and  New 
Orleans. 

It  will  be  seen  that  though  the  num- 
bers at  Detroit  were  increased  from 
time  to  time,  those  who  came  were 
usually  French  and  until  1760  the  city 
was  almost  entirely  French,  and  that 
language    was    spoken.      About    this 


French  had  borne  fruit,  and  to  them 
the  Indians  had  become  friendly.  The 
British  commander  assumed  supreme 
authority,  and  if  this  seemed  despotic 
to  the  French  much  more  did  it  an- 
tagonize the  Indians.  Pontiac,  the 
chief  of  the  Ottawas,  whose  head- 
quarters were  at  what  is  now  Walker- 
ville,  and  whose  summer  residence 
was  at  Peche  Island,  was  a  famous 
warrior,  and  he,  realizing  that  with 
the  accession  of  the  British  the  secur- 


time  Quebec  and  Montreal  and  their 
dependencies,  including  Detroit,  were 
surrendered  to  Great  Britain,  and 
soon  afterwards  a  force  of  British 
troops  under  Major  Robert  Rogers 
took  possession  of  the  fort.  The 
French  soldiers  were  sent  away  and 
only  those  inhabitants  who  took  the 
oath  of  allegiance  were  allowed  to  re- 
main. The  Indians  had  always  been 
especially  hostile  to  the  English,  but 
during  the  years  preceding  the  acces- 
sion of  the  British,  the  labors  of  the 


ity  of  his  people  was  threatened,  re- 
solved, by  one  bold  attack,  to  exter- 
minate the  English  at  Mackinac, 
Detroit,  Toledo  and  Sandusky.  Calling 
together  a  council  of  the  chiefs  of  all 
the  western  tribes,  the  scheme  for  si- 
multaneous attack  upon  all  the  points 
from  Pittsburg  to  Green  Bay  was 
mapped  out.  As  Detroit  was  the  most 
important  post,  Pontiac  himself  was 
in  charge  of  the  movement  at  this 
IX)int. 

Parkman  says  that  this  plan  of  the 


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Gen.  William  Hull 

Indian  Napoleon  was  revealed  to 
Major  Gladwin,  who  was  then  com- 
mander at  the  fort,  by  a  beautiful 
Ojibway  girl,  who  had  become  enam- 
ored of  the  officer.  The  bold  plan  of 
the  chief  was  baffled,  but  in  July, 
1763,  after  a  series  of  skirmishes  and 
horrible  butcheries  by  the  Indians,  the 
English,  enforced  by  troops  from  Ni- 
agara, met  the  savages  at  Bloody  Run 
in  a  battle  the  most  terrible  in  the  his- 
tory of  Detroit.  The  place  of  the  at- 
tack was  marked  for  over  a  hundred 
years  by  a  large  tree  scarred  with  bul- 
let holes,  but  it  was  cut  down  in  1893. 


Loaned  by  C.  M.  Burton 

Cass  Homestead 


The  owners  of  the  grounds  have 
placed  a  memorial  tablet  on  the  spot 
where  the  Pontiac  tree  stood  so  long, 
the  last  memorial  of  the  bloody  fight. 

During  the  Revolutionary  War  the 
fort  was  strengthened  as  an  English 
outpost.  The  people  of  the  North- 
west were  warned  to  take  up  arms  in 
behalf  of  the  Americans,  but  nothing 
aggressive  had  been  accomplished. 
The  wilderness  of  three  or  four  hun- 
dred miles  between  Detroit  and  the 
eastern  states  made  an  attack  upon  the 
post  by  the  Americans  impracticable, 
and  most  of  the  fighting  was  done  be- 
tween the  British  and  the  Indians  and 
the  people  of  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania. 
The  treaty  of  Versailles  surrendered 
to  the  Americans  all  of  Michigan,  but 
it  was  not  until  January  11,  1796,  that 
the  British  evacuated  Detroit  and  An- 
thony Wayne's  army  took  full  posses- 
sion. 

Col.  John  Francis  Hamtramck  was 
the  first  commander  of  the  post  after 
the  Revolution.  He  was  a  native  of 
Quebec  and  had  been  an  officer  in  the 
Revolutionary  War,  leading  the  left 
wing  of  **Mad  Anthony"  Wayne's 
army  at  the  battle  of  the  Miami.  Col. 
Hamtramck  remained  at  Fort  Shelby, 
as  it  was  now  called,  until  his  death 
in  1803.  Isaac  Weld  in  his  book  writ- 
ten after  a  tour  of  the  United  States 
and  Canada  in  1795-6  writes  at 
some  length  of  Detroit  after  the  evac- 
uation : 

"Detroit  contains  about  three  hundred 
houses,"  he  writes,  "and  is  the  largest 
town  in  the  western  country.  It  stands 
contiguous  to  the  ;iver,  on  the  top  of  the 
banks,  which  are  here  about  twenty  feet 
high.  At  the  bottom  of  them  there  are  very 
extensive  wharfs  for  the  accommodation 
of  shipping,  built  of  wood,  similar  to  those 
in  the  Atlantic  seaports.     The  town  con- 


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sists  of  several  streets  which  run  parallel 
to  the  river,  which  are  intersected  by 
others  at  right  angles.  They  are  all  very 
narrow,  not  being  paved,  dirty  in  the  ex- 
treme whenever  it  happens  to  rain;  for 
the  accommodation  of  passengers,  how- 
ever, there  are  footways  in  most  of  them, 
formed  of  square  logs,  laid  traversely  close 
to  each  other.  The  town  is  surrounded  by 
a  strong  stockade,  through  which  there  are 
four  gates.  The  gates  are  defended  by 
strong  blockhouses,  and  on  the  west  side 
of  the  town  is  a  small  fort  in  form  of  a 
square,    with    bastions   at    the   angles. 

"Detroit  is  at  present  the  headquarters 
of  the  western  army  of  the  states;  the  gar- 
rison consists  of  300  men,  who  are  quar- 
tered   in    barracks.      About    two-thirds    of 


Jefferson  Ave.  Presbyterian  Church 

204 


the  inhabitants  arc  of  French  extraction, 
and  the  greater  part  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  settlement  on  the  river,  both  above 
and  below  the  town  are  of  the  same  de- 
scription. Detroit  is  a  place  of  very  con- 
siderable trade,  there  are  no  less  than 
twelve  trading  vessels  belonging  to  it, 
brigs,  sloops  and  schooners,  of  from  50 
to  100  tons  each.  The  inland  navigation 
in  this  quarter  is  indeed  extensive,  Lake 
Erie,  300  miles  in  length,  being  open  to 
vessels  belonging  to  the  port,  on  the  one 
side,  and  Lakes  Michigan  and  Huron,  the 
first  upwards  of  200  miles  in  length  and 
50  in  breadth,  an^d  the  second  no  less  than 
1,000  miles  in  circumference,  on  the  oppo- 
site side,  not  to  speak  of  Lake  St.  Clair 
and  the  Detroit  River,  which  connect  these 
lakes  together,  or  of  the  many  large  rivers 
which  flow  into  them." 

The  Detroit  of  Isaac  Weld's  de- 
scription is  a  contrast  to  the  Detroit 
of  1903  with  its  broad  avenues  and 
miles  of  asphalt  paving;  the  river 
front  lined  with  factories,  showing 
a  magnificent  centre  of  business  and 
commerce.  It  is  said  that  a  greater 
tonnage  passes  Detroit  than  any  Q|her 
port  in  the  world. 

After  the  Revolution  the  govern- 
ment land  grants  started  western  emi- 


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gration  and  people  from  the  eastern 
states  began  to  settle  at  Detroit.  A 
number  of  New  Englanders  came 
from  Marietta,  Ohio,  and  from  places 
in  the  Western  Reserve,  while  others 


came  from  New  York  State.  Most  of 
the  latter  were  families  who  had,  some 
years  before  gone  west  from  New 
England  and  were  not  generally  from 
the  New  York  Dutch  families.  The 
first  American  settlers  were  Solomon 
Sibley,  John  Whipple,  Dr.  William 
Rrown,    William    Russell,    Christian 


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Rev.  Gabriel  ^Richard 

206 


David  Bacon 

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Clemens,  James  and  Benjamin  Chit- 
tenden, Dr.  William  McCoskry, 
James  Henry,  Elijah  Brush,  Henry 
Brevoort,  Col.  Henry  Jackson  Hunt, 
Augustus  Langdon  and  Major  Whist- 
ler, grandfather  of  the  artist. 

In  1805  Michigan  was  made  a  terri- 
tory, and  Gen.  William  Hull  was  ap- 
pointed governor  with  headquarters  at 
Detroit,  with  Augustus  B.  Wood- 
ward, Frederick  Bates  and  John  Grif- 
fin as  judges.  On  the  day  before  their 
arrival  the  town,  except  the  fort,  was 
entirely  destroyed  by  fire,  and  instead 
of  finding  a  flourishing  village,  the 
governor  came  upon  a'  mass  of  smok- 
ing ruins  and  many  homeless  suffer- 
ing people.  The  spectacle  was  most 
disheartening  and  his  first  duty  was 
to  give  relief  to  the  suffering,  and  ^ 
then  to  plan  for  a  new  town.  Con-  S 
gress  passed  an  act  directing  the  gov-  ^ 
ernor  and  the  judges  to  lay  out  a  3 
town,  and  to  give  to  the  land  owners  3 
of  the  old  town  an  equivalent  of  land  5 
in  the  new,  and  to  each  male  inhabi- 
tant who  was  twenty-one  years  of  age 
at  the  time  of  the  fire  6,000  square 
feet  of  land.  This  plan  was  completed 
the  next  year,  and  is  to  some  extent 
the  scheme  of  the  city  as  it  now  is. 
Judge  W^oodward,  who  was  especially 
responsible  for  the  laying  out  of  the 
city,  was  a  man  of  large  vision,  and 
instead  of  a  settlement  of  a  few  hun- 
dred houses  he  saw  an  immense  me- 
tropolis and  planned  accordingly. 
The  Campus  Martins  and  Grand 
Circus  were  central  points,  and  from 
these  radiated  broad  avenues  then 
reaching  miles  into  the  woods,  now 
the  glory  of  modem  Detroit. 

The  history  of  the  War  of  181 2  and 
Hull's  surrender  are  too  much  a  mat- 
ter of  general  history  to  be  more  than 


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DETROIT 


Dr.  Duffield's  Church 

mentioned  here.  Again  the  British 
were  in  possession  of  the  fort,  this 
time  from  August  i6,  1812,  to  Sep- 
tember 28,  18 1 3. 

General  Lewis  Cass  succeeded  Gen- 
eral Hull  as  Governor  and  held  that 
office  eighteen  years.  He  was  a  man 
of  unusual  ability.  Born  in  New 
Hampshire,  first  a  settler  in  Mari- 
etta, Ohio,  and  living  in  the  stirring 
times  of  the  early  years  of  the  century, 
he  had  become  conspicuous  in  politi- 
cal affairs.  He  had  been  in  the  Ohio 
legislature  and  on  the  breaking  out  of 
the  War  had  been  appointed  marshal 
of  the  state,  and  had  had  abundant  op- 
portunity to  become  acquainted  with 
the  Northwest  and  its  people. 


His  home  in  Exeter,  New  Hamp- 
shire, IS  still  standing,  and  a  tablet 
placed  there  by  the  D.  A.  R.  marks 
the  same. 

The  history  of  Detroit  is  unique 
and  unlike  any  other  city  in  the  Uni- 
ted States.  For  over  a  hundred  years 
after  the  first  French  visitor  came  it 
was  under  the  dominion  of  France, 
and  during  sixty  years  of  this  time 
under  a  French  governor.  The  peo- 
ple and  the  language  were  French, 
and  the  French  influence  will  be  felt 
for  many  generations.  From  1760  to 
1796  it  was  under  the  English.  The 
fort  was  commanded  by  British  offi- 
cers and  many  English  and  Scotch 
merchants  changed  the  character  of 
the  place  from  French  to  more  con- 
servative English.  After  thirty-six 
years  of  English  rule  the  American 
flag  waved  over  the  fort  and  New 
England  influence  came.  The  im- 
portance of  the  post  caused  it  for 
many  years  to  be  under  the  command 
of  noted  officers  and  some  of  the  lead- 
ing eastern  families  made  the  town 
their  home.  Again  in  181 2  the  Eng- 
lish flag  waved  for  a  year,  to  be  re- 


Dr.  Duffield 

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First  Congfegational  Church 


placed  by  the  stars  and  stripes  when 
the  city  again  became  American. 

The  religious  history  of  the  city  has 
especially  shown  the  influence  of  these 
changes  of  government.  One  of  the 
first  acts  of  Cadillac  was  to  provide 
for  a  church  and  the  second  day  after 
his  arrival  Ste.  Anne's  was  dedicated 
and  soon  the  foundations  were  laid. 
The  records  were  begun  and  ex- 
cept those  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
church  of  St.  Ignace,  which  dates 
back  to  1695,  there  are  no  manuscript 
records  in  the  west  so  ancient  and  in- 
teresting. These  records  are  complete 
from  the  beginning  and  not  only  are 
the  vital  statistics  of  the  infant  settle- 
ment recorded  but  much  of  the  earli- 
est history  of  this  section  has  its  foun- 
dation in  these  yellow,  well-worn 
books.  The  first  baptismal  entry  is 
that  of  a  child  of  Cadillac  and  the 
second  that  of  the  child  of  a  soldier 
and  a  squaw.  For  many  years  the 
settlement  was  Roman  Catholic  and 
Ste.  Anne's  was  the  only  church  build- 


ing. The  priests  at  Detroit  held  a 
prominent  position  as  they  were  the 
only  spiritual  advisers  both  for  the 
French  and  the  converted  Indians, 
and  their  life  was  one  of  much  labor 
and  continual  sacrifice. 

The  best  known  of  the  older  priests 
was  Rev.  Gabriel  Richard,  and  no 
story  of  Detroit  would  be  complete 
without  mention  of  this  devoted  man. 
Father  Ridiard  left  France  on  ac- 
count of  the  Revolution  and  lived  in 
Baltimore  until  called  as  a  missionary 
to  the  Northwest  territory,  but  in  1798 
he  came  to  Detroit,  as  priest  at  Ste. 
Anne's.  He  was  a  public-spirited  man, 
much  esteemed  by  both  Catholics  and 
Protestants,  and  took  a  prominent 
part  in-  public  affairs.  In  1809  he 
went  east,  brought  back  a  printing 
press  and  some  type,  and  published 
the  first  newspaper  printed  west  of 
the  Allegheny  mountains,  called  the 
'^Michigan  Essay,  or  Impartial  Ob- 
server." Other  pamphlets  and  books 
were  printed  by  Father  Richard  and 


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Detroit  Boat  Club. 


when  the  English  took  possession  of 
the  fort,  Brock's  proclamation  was 
printed  on  this  press,  it  being  the  only 
one  in  the  Northwest.  In  1823  Father 
Richard  became  a  candidate  for  Con- 
gress, and  notwithstanding  the  objec- 
tions of  some  of  his  parishioners  to 
this  public  entrance  into  politics,  he 
refused  to  withdraw  his  name  and  was 
elected  by  a  large  majority.  One  of 
the  results  of  his  work  at  Washington 
was  the  appropriation  for  a  state  road 
between  Detroit  and  Chicago.  After 
his  term  of  office  was  ended  he  applied 
himself  to  founding  Indian  schools  in 
Michigan  and  Wisconsin.  'During  the 
epidemic  of  Asiatic  cholera  in  Detroit 
he  overworked  in  ministering  to  the 
victims  and  died  of  the  disease  in 
1832.  It  was  through  the  efforts  of 
Father  Richard  that  the  new  Ste. 
Anne's  church  was  built,  the  old 
building  having  been  destroyed  by  the 
great  fire.  ^ 

There  was  no  Protestant  clergyman 
in  the  city  for  many  years  and  not  un- 
til the  English  troops  arrived  in  1760 
were  there  any  Protestant  services 
held.  Even  then  there  was  no  Prot- 
estant minister  other  than  the  chaplain 
210 


of  the  army.  During  the  Revolution- 
ary War  the  Moravians  from  Ohio 
were  brought  to  the  fort  on  suspicion 
of  having  aided  the  Americans.  Tliey 
were  acquitted  but  for  twenty  years 
afterward  lived  in  the  vicinity  and  it 
was  due  to  their  efforts  that  the  Eng- 
lish and  American  residents  began  to 
think  of  a  church  building.  The  first 
Protestant  minister  to  come  to  the  city 
was  the  Rev.  David  Bacon,  father  of 
Leonard,  who  was  born  here,  a  Con- 
gregational clergyman  sent  as  a  mis- 
sionary from  Connecticut  in  1801. 
Mr.  Bacon  spent  some  time  in  Michi- 
gan and  was  unsuccessful  in  building 
up  a  church  but  established  the  first 
English  school,  the  schools  formerly 
having  been  French  and  connected 
with  the  church. 

After  Mr.  Bacon  came  other  mis- 
sionaries, but  they  were  also  unsuc- 
cessful and  it  was  not  until  18 10  that 
a  Protestant  society  numbering  seven 
members  was  formed  with  Rev.  Noah 
Wells  as  minister.  This  membership 
was  increased  to  thirty  before  the  War 
of  1812.  In  June,  1816,  Rev.  John 
Monteith,  a  graduate  of  Princeton 
Theological   Seminary,   a   missionary 


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DETROIT 


Detroit  Club 

commissioned  by  the  Board  of  Mis- 
sions of  the  Presbyterian  Church,  be- 
gan his  labors  in  Michigan.  Three 
years  later  a  lot  on  Woodward  Av- 
enue was  granted  to  **The  First  Prot- 
estant Society,"  which  was  the  title 
taken  by  the  church  and  congrega- 
tion. The  deed  w^as  signed  by  Lewis 
Cass,  governor,  Solomon  Sibley  and 
John  Hunt,  two  of  the  judges  of 
the  territory,  and  witnessed  by 
Henry  Chipman  and  E.  A.  Brush. 
In  1838  Rev.  George  Duffield  be- 
came pastor. 

Dr.  Duffield  was  of  Huguenot  and 
Scotch-Irish  descent,  son  of  Hon. 
George  Duffield,  at  one  time  Comp- 
troller-General of  Pennsylvania  and 
grandson  of  Rev.  George  Duffield,  the 
"fighting  parson,"  a  graduate  of  the 
first  class  of  Princeton  and  associate 
chaplain  of  the  first  Continental  Con- 
gress of  Pennsylvania  with  Bishop 
William  White.  Dr.  Duffield  gradu- 
ated at  the  University  of  Pennsyl- 
vania at  the  age  of  sixteen,  then 
entered  the  Theological  Seminary 
in  New  York  City.  In  181 5  he 
was  licensed  to  preach,  and  his  first 
pastorate  was  at  Carlisle  where  he  re- 


mained nineteen  years,  resigning  to 
accept  a  call  to  the  First  Presbyterian 
Church  of  Philadelphia.  After  two 
years  at  Philadelphia  he  preached  in 
the  Broadway  Tabernacle  in  New 
York  and  in  1838  accepted  the  pas- 
torate at  Detroit.  He  married  Isa- 
bella Graham  Bethune,  daughter 
of  Divie  Bethune  and  Joanna  Gra- 
ham, who  was  called  the  **Mother 
of  American  Sunday  Schools,"  and 
granddaughter  of  Mrs.  Isabella  Gra- 
hafn,  who  is  remembered  as  a  philan- 
thropist in  Scotland  and  America. 
When  Dr.  Duffield  was  installed  in 
Detroit  his  congregation  was  the  larg- 
est in  the  Northwest.  He  came  to  it 
when  it  was  a  small  town  but  during 
the  thirty  years  of  his  residence  it 
grew  into  a  large  city.  He  was  a  man 
of  untiring  energy,  often  preaching 
three  or  four  times  on  Sunday  and 
teaching  a  large  Bible  class.  Al- 
though his  pastoral  work  was  so 
heavy  he  mastered  eight  or  nine  lan- 
guages, was  one  of  the  trustees  of 
Dickinson  College;  a  regent  of  the 
University  of  Michigan,  a  trustee  of 
Harper  Hospital,  and  connected  with 
almost  every  good  enterprise  in  De- 
troit during  his  life  there.  In  June, 
1868,  he  died  suddenly  when  making 


Central  High  School 


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The    POSTOFFICE 


the  address  of  welcome  to  the  delegates 
of  the  World's  Convention  of  the 
Young  Men's  Christian  Associations. 
Dr.  Duffield  was  a  man  of  strong  con- 
victions, great  erudition  and  power- 
ful will,  and  his  influence  was  felt  not 
only  in  Detroit,  but  through  the  whole 
Northwest. 

'Tublic  opinion  to  be  safe  must  be 
enlightened."  It  will  be  seen  in  the 
study  of  all  early  settlements  that  the 
first  thought  of  the  Puritans  was  a 
Qhurch  and  then  a  school.  The  French 


settlers  thought  of  a  church  but  edu- 
cation was  not  in  their  opinion  of  like 
importance.  The  main  purpose  of  the 
French  schools  for  the  first  century  in 
Detroit  was  to  give  religious  instruc- 
tion. It  was  not  until  after  the  Revo- 
lutionary War  when  the  town  began 
to  respond  to  the  New  England  influ- 
ence, that  the  schools  took  the  proper 
place  in  the  interests  of  the  people. 
One  of  the  best  high  school  build- 
ings in  the  United  States  is  in  Detroit, 
built  in  1896,  at  a  cost  of  $446,750,  ex- 

213 


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elusive  of  the  site.  Since  that  time 
the  Eastern  and  the  Western  high 
school  buildings  have  been  erected. 
These  three  schools  with  the  7v  other 
public  and  the  70  private  and  paro- 
chial schools,  speak  well  for  the  inter- 
est of  the  people  in  educational  mat- 


FoRT  Street  Presbyterian  Church 

214 


ters.  The  birthplace  of  the  University 
of  Michigan  was  Detroit,  and  it  is  now 
situated  only  an  hour's  ride  from  the 
city.  Plans  for  a  new  public  library 
provided  for  by  the  gift  of  $750,000 
from  Andrew  Carnegie  are  under  dis- 
cussion. The  library  has  about  180,- 
000  well  selected  volumes,  and  the  col- 
lection of  state  and  town  histories  is 
larger  than  that  of  any  other  library 
in  the  middle  west  except  in  Chicago. 
The  complete  set  of  periodicals  and 
the  complete  proceedings  of  learned 
societies  in  this  library  are  also  worthy 
of  mention.  Mr.  C.  M.  Burton,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Michigan  Pioneer  Society, 
has  a  very  large  library  of  historical 
and  genealogical  books  also,  which  is 
open  to  the  public. 

The  Art  Museum  was  built  in  1887 
at  a  cost  of  $100,000,  and  several  ad- 
ditions have  since  been  made.  The 
building  is  on  Jefferson  Avenue  and 
contains  some  valuable  pictures  and 
collections,  among  which  are  Peak's 
"Court  of  Death,"  Gari  Melcher's 
"A'esper  TTour,"   Richard's  "Evange- 


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2f5      -. 


Bne,"  Rchn's  "Missing  Vessel/'  the 
Scripp's  collection  of  old  masters,  an 
unusual  Egyptian  collection,  the  Balch 
collection  of  Autotypes,  and  a  Japa- 
nese collection  given  by  F.  K. 
Steams,  which  in  diversity  and  vari- 
ety is  imequalled  by  any  such  collec- 
tion in  the  country.  In  the  Steams 
collection  is  "The  Wrestlers,"  the 
fanK>us  piece  of  realistic  Japanese 
wood  carving  which  is  said  to  be  the 
best  spednien  ever  brought  out  of 
Japan. 

ITie  Detroit  club  occupies  a  com- 
modious building.  Other  clubs  are 
the  Michigan,  the  University,  the  Fel- 
lowcraft,  the  Yondetega  and  the 
Country  Qub.  The  Twentieth  Cen- 
tury Qub  is  a  large  and  flourishing 
organization  of  women  and  the  "Tues- 
day Musicale"  brings  yearly  to  the 
dty  some  of  the  leading  artists. 
There  are  several  other  organizations 
which  contribute  to  the  literary  and 
musical  life.  There  are  both  Young 
Men's  and  Young  Women's  Christian 
Associations,  the  former  having  a 
building  and  the  latter  planning  to 
build  shortly.  Charitable  work  is  well 
organized  and  many  of  the  societies 
have  buildings. 

The  unusual  location  of  Detroit 
makes  it  a  summer  resort  and  from 
June  to  October  the  dty  sees  many 
excursionists.  It  is  a  stopping  place 
for  those  going  to  the  upper  Michigan 
resorts,  as  most  of  the  large  steamers 
stay  at  the  docks  for  a  few  hours,  and 
Detroit  is  the  southern  terminus  for 
several  lines  of  boats.  Daily  steamers 
run  to  Port  Hiu-on,  Mt.  Qemens,  the 
St  Clair  Flats,  Qeveland,  Wyandotte, 
Put-in-Bay,  Grosse  He  and  other  isl- 
ands in  Lake  Erie,  Amherstburg, 
Chatham  and  other  Canadian  points. 


Ferries  mn  continually  to  Windsor, 
Walkerville  and  to  the  island  parks, 
Bois,  Blanc  and  Bdle  Isfe.  Here,  too,, 
is  one  of  the  great  trolley  centres.  In 
a  short  time  the  dty  will  be  connected 
by  electric  lines  with  Cleveland,  Bay 
City  and  Chicago.  The  lines  are  al- 
ready completed  to  Port  Huron,  Jack- 
son and  Grand  Rapids.  At  one  time 
in  the  city  the  regular  fare  on  the 
street  railways  was  three  cents  and 
this  is  still  the  rate  on  one  line  of  cars. 
On  all  other  lines  the  fare  is  five  cents 
except  between  the  hours  of  5.30  and 
7  A.  M.  and  5.15  and  6.15  P.  M.  when 
eight  tickets  are  sold  for  25  cents. 

That  Detroit  is  universally  known 
as  one  of  the  cleanest  cities,  is  due  to 
the  work  of  the  Department  of  Public 
Works,  which  employs  one  hundred 
"White  Wings"  who  with  thdr 
brooms,  shovels  and  push  carts  keep 
clean  and  free  from  rubbish  the  paved 
streets  and  main  avenues.  Litter  bar- 
rels are  placed  at  street  corners,  rail- 
road depots,  steamboat  wharves,  parks 
and  places  of  amusement  and  the  av- 
erage man  or  boy  has  grown  to  con- 
sider himself  a  committee  of  one  to 
further  the  gospel  of  cleanliness  and 
carry  the  refuse  ordinarily  thrown 
into  the  streets  to  the  most  conven- 
ient litter  barrel.  Cedar  block  pave- 
ment continues  to  lead  in  the  number 
of  miles  of  paving  but  on  the  principal 
thoroughfares  are  brick  and  asphalt, 
the  report  in  1902  showing  fifty-one 
miles  of  the  latter  pavements  and  thir- 
teen miles  of  macadam.  This  makes 
the  city  an  ideal  place  for  automobiles 
and  bicycles. 

The  water  used  in  the  city  is  from 
the  Detroit  River  and  pumped  by  di- 
rect pressure,  with  no  reservoir,  the 
total  daily  capacity  of  the  five  pumps 


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DETROIT 


being  102,000,000  gallons.  The  taxes 
are  exceptionally  low  with  family  rates 
at  $2.60  per  annum. 

Detroit  is  a  great  manufacturing 
centre  for  brass,  drugs,  tobacco,  stoves 
and  cars.  In  the  manufacture  of  salt 
it  ranks  second  in  the  world.  There 
are  two  large  match  factories  and  here 
is  one  of  the  six  pin  factories  in  the 
United  States.  The  Cranbrook  Press, 
owned  by  George  L.  Booth,  is  well 
known  for  the  production  of  rare  and 
beautiful  books. 

Though  the  park  system  is  not  so 
well  arranged  as  in  Chicago  and  Bos- 
ton, Detroit  has  natural  advantages 
equalled  by  no  other  city  in  the  United 
States.  Belle  Isle  Park  is  an  island  in 
the  Detroit  River  easy  of  access  by  a 
bridge  and  by  ferries.  This  island, 
containing  about  seven  hundred  acres, 
was  used  as  a  garrison  and  pasture 
ground  during  the  French  occupancy 
of  the  city  and  later  as  a  place  of  resi- 
dence. It  was  owned  by  the  McDou- 
galls,  Macombs  and  Campaus  and  in 
1879  was  purchased  by  the  city  for 
$200,000.  A  casino  and  other  build- 
ings and  shelters  were  erected,  avenues 
and  flower  beds  laid  out,  the  total  ex- 
penditure up  to  the  present  time  being 
about  $1,500,000.  On  Belle  Isle  are 
the  buildings  of  the  Detroit  Yacht 
Club  and  the  Detroit  Boat  Club,  the 
luxurious  home  of  the  latter  being  a 
model  for  such  an  organization. 

Hon.  Thomas  W.  Palmer  donated 
Palmer  Park,  a  tract  of  120  acres  in 
the  northern  part  of  the  city.  Cass 
Park  was  given  by  Governor  Lewis 
Cass.  In  Judge  Woodward's  plan  of 
Detroit  were  a  number  of  small  parks 
and  squares.     On  the  Campus  Mar- 


tius,  an  open  square  in  front  of  the 
City  Hall,  are  the  Soldiers  Monument, 
the  Palmer  fountain  and  the  Bagley 
fountain.  The  Grand  Circus  Park  is 
larger  and,  with  its  fountains,  flow- 
ers and  trees,  is  a  pleasant  resting 
place  in  the  very  heart  of  the  city. 
The  Grand  Boulevard,  which  encir- 
cles the  greater  part  of  the  city,  ends 
at  Belle  Isle  bridge,  making  a  drive 
of  over  eleven  miles.  With  these 
parks  and  places  for  recreation  and 
rest  there  are  no  little  children  in  De- 
troit who  have  not  known  the  happi- 
ness of  a  day's  outing  in  the  fields  and 
woods.  During  the  summer  months 
there  are  many  picnics  on  Belle  Isle 
which  is  large  enough  for  all  the  city 
gatherings  as  well  as  for  the  many 
companies  of  pleasure  seekers  who 
come  from  the  adjoining  towns. 

Detroit  has  never  been  marked  by 
any  mushroom  growth.  The  increase 
in  population  has  been  quiet  and  grad- 
ual and  each  census  shows  the  number 
higher  than  that  of  the  year  previous. 
It  is  essentially  a  city  of  homes. 
There  are  few  congested  districts,  and 
the  tenement  is  seldom  seen.  It  is  a 
city  for  the  working  man  and  the 
stranger  is  always  impressed  by  the 
many  streets  of  low,  one-storied  cot- 
tages with  little  garden  plots  in  front. 
The  avenues  and  better  streets  are 
broad,  lined  with  trees  and  many  of 
the  houses  are  surrounded  by  large 
grounds.  There  is  an  air  of  comfort 
and  homelikeness  which  belongs  more 
often  to  the  village  than  to  the  larger 
city,  and  this  combined  with  the  natu- 
ral charm  of  the  surroundings  makes 
Detroit  one  of  the  most  beautiful  cities 
in  the  country. 


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Every  Woman  a  Cook 


By  Zitella  Cocke 


IT  was  the  famous  biographer, 
whose  work  stands  confessed  as 
the  best  of  the  kind  which  the 
world  has  even  seen,  who  de- 
fined man  as  a  cooking  animal.  The 
definition  of  man  as  the  animal  that 
talks,  or  the  animal  that  laughs  was 
not  esteemed  unhappy,  yet  other  ani- 
mals may  be  said  to  talk,  when  they 
communicate  with  each  other,  as  they 
are  known  to  do,  and  naturalists  have 
discovered  in  them  such  indications 
of  good-nature  and  jollity,  as  might  be 
called  laughter,  but  common  consent 
awards  the  palm  of  preeminence  to 
Mr.  Bosweirs  clever  definition,  since 
no  other  animal  can  be  said  to  cook. 
At  what  period  in  the  world's  history, 
man  began  the  operations  of  the 
cuisine,  the  most  learned  are  unable 
to  determine.  Hardly,  I  think  in  that 
Paradise  from  which  all  tribulation 
was  excluded,  for  there  is  no  doubt 
that  many  ills,  digestive  and  other, 
came  in  with  cooking.  In  the  last 
century  before  the  Christian  era,  the 
origin  of  cookery  was  discussed  by 
Posidonius  of  Rhodes,  a  stoic,  who 
advocated  the  utmost  simplicity  in 
cooking,  when  it  was  necessary  to  be 
done  at  all,  and  insisted  that  with  the 
equipment  of  good  teeth,  glands  and 
secretions,  a  tongue  and  the  usual  ap- 
paratus for  digestion,  man  was  inde- 
pendent of  the  cuisine,  and  it  is  an  in- 
disputable fact  that  when  history  first 
condescended   to    notice   our    British 


ancestors,  their  cooking  was  of  Posi- 
donian  simplicity  and  culinary  practice 
had  all  the  limitations  the  uncom- 
promising old  stoic  could  desire.  The 
Roman  Conquest,  however,  adminis- 
tered in  the  kitchen  as  well  as  in  the 
government,  and  Britannica's  house- 
keeping underwent  a  radical  transfor- 
mation. In  addition  to  this  change, 
the  German  immigrants  who  settled  in 
Britain  during  the  Roman  occupation, 
imparted  to  the  natives  a  valuable 
knowledge  of  wholesome  cookery. 

Civilization  and  cooking  go  hand  in 
hand,  and  the  nations  that  best  un- 
derstand the  etiquette  of  the  drawing- 
room,  are  most  keenly  alive  to  the  skill 
and  the  refinements  of  the  kitchen. 
The  celebrated  gastronomer,  Beauvil- 
liers,  says :  "The  cuisine,  simple  in  its 
origin,  refined  from  century  to  cen- 
tury, has  become  a  diflFerent  art, — ^a 
complicated  science,  on  which  many 
authors  have  written,  without  having 
been  able  to  embrace  it  in  its  entirety" 
— and  it  cannot  be  denied  that  the 
model  cook-book, — the  vade  mecum, 
which  contains  all  that  one  ought  to 
know  and  eliminates  all  that  one  ought 
not  to  know,  is  to  be  numbered  among 
the  things  not  yet  accomplished.  The 
apt  remark  of  Monsieur  Fayot  to  Jules 
Janin: — "It  is  difiicult,  sir,  to  write 
well,  but  a  hundred  times  more  diflS- 
cult  to  know  how  to  dine  well," — 
must  have  occurred,  with  painful  fre- 
quency to  the  mind  of  more  than  one 

217 

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EVERY  WOMAN  A  COOK 


housekeeper.  Said  the  author  of  the 
Comedie  Humaine; — ^"An  empty  stom- 
ach produces  an  empty  brain,"  and 
Louis  XIV  was  accustomed  to  add  to 
the  explicit  directions  he  gave  his 
chef,  the  adage: — "He  eats  well  who 
works  well." — Napoleon,  fulfilling  his 
duty  as  "tete  d'armee,"  never  failed  to 
insist  that  there  could  be  no  good  sol- 
diers without  good  soup,  and  if  all  the 
world  loves  a  lover,  as  all  the  world 
should  do,  it  is  equally  true  that  all  the 
world  loves  a  good  dinner. 

But  what  constitutes  a  good  dinner, 
— what  culinary  results  are  most  indu- 
dve  to  health,  strength  and  comfort, 
without  pampering  a  morbid  and  ex- 
cessive appetite,  is  a  question  that  too 
many  of  the  world  are  still  incom- 
petent to  answer.  That  art,  without 
which  all  other  arts  are  useless — the 
art  which  displays  all  that  is  best  in 
earth,  and  sea  and  air — ^has  been  great- 
ly neglected,  nor  does  the  censure  of 
this  n^lect  imply  the  endorsement  of 
the  philosopher's  speech  to  La  Place, 
— that  the  invention  of  a  new  dish  was 
more  important  to  mankind  than  the 
discovery  of  a  new  planet.  That  a 
culinary  preparation  is  of  vaster  im- 
portance than  a  celestial  visitant  to 
many  persons  besides  Monsieur  Hen- 
rion  de  Pensey,  is  doubtless  true. 
Epicurean  emperors  and  monarchs 
have  bestowed  towns  and  fabulous 
sums  for  the  invention  of  a  new  dish 
but  it  is  not  so  much  the  pleasure  as 
the  utility  of  the  table  which  is  the 
subject  of  this  paper. 

"The  palate,"  says  Francatelli,  "is 
as  capable  of  being  cultivated  as  the 
eye  and  the  ear,"  but  that  this  cultiva- 
tion be  in  the  line  of  the  promotion 
of  health  and  soimdness  of  body,  there- 


by insuring  as  &r  as  possible,  the 
mens  sana,  surely  ought  to  be  the  pur- 
pose and  practice  of  every  intelligent 
housewife.  If,  as  the  Marquis  de 
Cresy  argues,  a  nation  may  be 
learned  from  the  study  of  its  cookery, 
and  history  rewritten  oa  gastronomi- 
cal  principles,  the  art  and  science  of 
cooking  should  by  all  means  constitute 
an  important  part  of  a  woman's  educa- 
tion, and  so  far  as  a  thorough  knowl- 
edge of  the  cuisine  extends,  every 
woman  should  be  a  cook.  It  is  to 
woman  that  the  daily  alimentation  of 
the  household  is  entrusted.  It  is  in 
the  home,  and  not  the  office  or  the 
field  that  the  food  of  the  family  is  pre- 
pared, and  upon  that  preparation  how 
much  of  comfort,  health,  beauty  and 
good  temper,  and  shall  it  be  added, 
good  morals  depend  I  Who  will  deny 
the  thorough  demoralization  of  phys- 
ique and  mentality,  which  results  from 
the  continuous  feeding  upon  badly 
cooked  food? 

It  was  the  conviction  of  Huxley 
that  a  man's  best  start  in  life  is  a 
sound  stomach.  The  conunissariat  of 
the  body  is  altogether  dependent  upon 
the  headquarters  of  the  digestion.  It 
follows  then,  as  a  natural  sequence, 
that  these  headquarters  should  be 
manned  by  healthy  and  efficient  work- 
ers, and  unmindful  of  it  as  we  may 
be,  the  distant  outposts  of  the  most 
highly  cultured  brain,  wait  expectant 
for  their  share  in  the  last  square  meal. 
With  what  intelligence  and  conscien- 
tiousness then,  should  a  mistress  at- 
tend to  the  cooking  done  in  her  home? 
It  is  quite  true  that  the  highest  devel- 
opment of  the  culinary  art  is  looked 
for  in  the  professional  chef,  and  it  is 
to  the  masculine  sex  that  the  cordon 


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EVERY  WOMAN   A   COOK 


219 


bleu  has  been  historically  awarded. 
With  the  notable  exception  of  Du- 
barry's  cook,  who  was  a  woman,  and 
who  prepared  a  dinner  for  Louis  XV, 
by  which  she  won  the  coveted  distinc- 
tion, and  through  the  entreaties  of  her 
mistress  received  from  the  royal  hand, 
all  the  insignia  which  entitled  her  to 
rank  with  the  best  professionals  of 
Paris,  I  know  of  no  woman  who  has 
been  so  brevetted,  but,  after  all,  facts 
count  for  more  than  names  or  titles, 
and  there  are  many  accomplished 
cooks  among  women.  For  absolute 
cleanliness  and  carefulness,  I  should 
give  them  the  preference  over  the  gen- 
erality of  men  cooks,  who,  as  far  as 
my  experience  and  observation  can 
decide,  do  not  wash  their  hands  quite 
so  often  as  a  wholesome  culinary  ad- 
ministration ought  to  require.  I  do 
not  forget  the  traditional  bowl  of 
water,  constantly  replenished,  which 
stood  in  Southern  kitchens,  in  which 
the  n^^o  cook,  male  or  female, 
washed  hands,  before  and  after  the 
preparation  of  each  dish.  This  cus- 
tom was  de  rigneur  in  every  well  or- 
dered Southern  household,  although 
the  old  lady,  who  put  on  her  strongest 
spectacles  for  the  diligent  scrutiny  of 
her  code's  hands,  three  times  a  day, 
was,  I  confess,  an  exception.  Good 
old  Dr.  Johnson,  with  characteristic 
obstinacy,  refused  to  believe  that  any 
woman  ever  attained  a  high  degree  of 
excellence  in  this  art  of  arts,  but  his 
Philistinism  on  the  woman  question, 
as  well  as  on  some  others,  was  of  too 
stalwart  a  nature  to  admit  of  discus- 
sion here. 

Common  sense  and  experience  have 
taught  the  world  the  value  of  woman 
cooks.  It  is  beyond  all  dispute  that 
woman  is  the  pivot,  so  to  speak,  upon 


which  the  household  turns.  Even  in 
homes  of  exceptional  wealth  and  lux- 
ury where  the  chef  is  always  in  evi- 
dence, a  large  part  of  the  best  culinary 
work  is  performed  by  his  woman  as- 
sistants, and  in  homes  whose  expendi- 
ture must  come  within  limited  or  mod- 
erate means,  it  is  the  mistress  who 
plans  and  superintends,  and  the 
woman  cook  who  achieves  both  the 
ordinary  meal  of  daily  sustenance,  and 
the  feast  wherewith  she  satisfies  in- 
vited guests.  And  this  has  been  true 
in  all  ages  of  the  world.  It  is  woman 
who  fulfils  or  directs  the  operations 
of  the  kitchen,  in  all  countries. 

The  first  mention  of  breadstuflfs 
with  which  we  are  acquainted,  occurs 
in  Genesis  where  Abraham,  on  the 
plains  of  Mamre,  entertains  the  angel, 
and  Sarah  is  bidden  to  make  ready 
quickly  three  measures  of  fine  meal, 
which  she  does  with  that  unhesitating 
obedience  which  leaves  no  doubt  con- 
cerning her  ability  as  a  housewife. 
The  red  pottage  of  lentils  for  whicli 
Esau  sold  his  birthright,  and  thereby 
changed  the  destiny  of  the  whole  Jew- 
ish people,  was,  inferentially  argued, 
prepared  by  a  woman,  although  the 
learned  Rabbi  El  Bassan,  a  celebrated 
Jewish  commentator  on  the  Talmud, 
spent  fifteen  years  in  the  vain  endeav- 
or to  discover  the  name  of  the  cook 
who  concocted  the  enticing  edible. 
In  my  poor  judgment,  as  the  back- 
woods preacher  is  wont  to  say,  these 
fifteen  years  were  needlessly  and  fool- 
ishly wasted,  for  it  goes  without  say- 
ing that  the  crafty  Rebekah  was  eithei 
the  maker  or  the  arbiter  of  that  re- 
nowned alimentary  combination.  The 
"chamea,"  a  preparation  of  milk, 
which  was  presented  in  a  lordly  dish 
to   the   vanquished   Sisera,   was   un- 


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EVERY  WOMAN   A   COOK 


doubtedly  the  culinary  achievement  of 
the  sagaciocis  Jael.  She  was  one  of 
the  most  treacherous  murderesses  of 
history^  no  doubt,  but  she  was  as  un- 
questionably a  good  cook,  whidi  is  the 
only  point  I  desire  to  establish,  and 
evidently  was  shrewd  enough  to  un- 
derstand the  means  by  which  she 
could  most  effectually  bag  her  game. 
That  the  most  unwholesome  cook- 
ing is  to  be  found  among  the  ignorant 
classes,  is  the  common  verdict  of  his- 
tory and  observation.  How  much  of 
bad  health  and  depravity,  in  many 
directions,  are  traceable  to  bad  cook- 
ing is  an  unknown  quantity  only  in 
degree.  "Tell  me  what  you  eat,  and 
I  will  tell  you  what  you  are,"  says  that 
high  priest  of  gastronomy,  Brillat- 
Savarin.  It  is  impossible  to  compute 
the  great  events  which  may  hang  upon 
so  trifling  a  thing,  as  many  suppose, 
as  a  bad  meal.  The  loss  of  the  battle 
of  Leipsic  and  the  unsuccess  at  Dres- 
den, were  said  to  have  been  due  to  an 
attack  of  indigestion,  from  which 
Napoleon  was  suffering,  after  having 
dined  upon  an  imperfectly  cooked 
joint  of  mutton.  One  can  hardly  re- 
press a  feeling  of  merriment,  not  to 
say  of  admiration,  at  the  speech  of  a 
native  of  Sybaris  to  a  valiant  Spar- 
tan: "I  am  not  astonished  that  you 
Spartans  do  not  fear  death  in  battle, 
since  any  man  in  his  senses  would 
rather  die  than  be  compelled  to  live  on 
your  execrable  broth  T*  The  utter  ab- 
sence of  the  esthetic  sense  in  the  Spar- 
tan nature  was  conspicuously  manifest 
at  the  table  and  in  the  cuisine  and 
Spartan  brevity  was  presumably  as 
applicable  to  their  table  manners  as  to 
their  speech.  A  people  who  did  not 
know  how  to  dine  graciously,  if  not 
sumptuously,  would  not  be  likely  to 


brook  a  word  too  much  in  conversa- 
tion. 

Nor  is  there  a  better  test  of  the  re- 
finement of  a  household,  than  the  man- 
ner in  which  food  is  regularly  served, 
and  nowhere  are  coarseness  and  vul- 
garity more  disgusting  than  at  the 
table.  With  many  persons,  Sir  An- 
drew Aguecheek's  estimate  of  life — 
that  it  consists  of  eating  and  drinkino; 
— may  be  an  article  of  creed,  but  at 
least,  let  them  pursue  their  avocation 
as  inoffensively  to  others,  as  is  possi- 
ble. To  eat  grossly,  is  as  bad  as  a 
crime,  and  worse  than  a  blunder,  and 
enough  to  produce  incurable  dyspep- 
sia in  those  who  are  compelled  to  sit 
at  table  with  the  offenders.  However, 
the  learned  gastronomers  make  very 
nice  shades  of  distinction  among  those 
who  are  fond  of  the  pleasures  of  the 
table.  The  gourmet,  they  say,  is  not 
necessarily  a  gourmand,  and  both  are 
removed  some  degrees  from  the  gros 
mangeur.  The  Abbe  Rouband,  dis- 
tinguished between  the  gourmand,  the 
goinfre,  the  goulu  and  the  glouton. 
The  last  three  were  relegated  to  a 
sphere  of  being  unworthy  the  consid- 
eration of  any  respectable  Amphitry- 
on. Gourmandise,  as  defined  by  Bril- 
lat-Savarin,  is  the  exercise  of  judg- 
ment by  which  preference  is  accorded 
to  the  taste  over  things  lacking  in  that 
quality,  but  I^  Reyniere,  a  notable 
authority,  goes  further  and  higher  in 
his  estimate  when  he  insists  that  the 
true  gourmand  eats  not  only  with 
choice  and  reflection,  but  unites  to  ap- 
petite a  jovial  spirit,  a  memory  stored 
with  good  anecdotes,  quickness  at 
repartee,  and  in  short,  holds  all  the 
senses  with  which  beneficent  nature 
has  endowed  him,  in  continual  activ- 
ity.    Of   still   another   order    is   the 


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friand,  who,  more  fastidious  even  than 
the  gourmet,  is  intolerant  of  massive 
refreshment,  and  derives  his  chief  de- 
light from  tit-bits  and  delicious  and 
subtle  flavors.  Certainly  the  heroic 
performances  of  Gargantuan  appe- 
tites ought  not  to  be  tolerated  at  the 
table  of  any  refined'householder.  The 
man  who  wants  nothing  to  do  but  to 
eat  and  sleep  is  too  gross  to  appreciate 
the  delicious  languor  of  the  lotos- 
eaters:  his  place  is  not  at  the  table 
but  with  the  brutes, — ^that  is,  if  the 
brutes  would  consent  to  such  associa- 
tion, for  to  their  honor  be  it  said,  eat- 
ing with  them  is  but  the  means  to  an 
end, — ^they  eat  to  sustain  life  and  ap- 
pease hunger.  I  am  aware  that  the 
oft-quoted  bon-mot,  that  a  turkey  is 
too  much  for  one,  and  hardly  enough 
for  two,  has  been  attributed  to  any 
number  of  "diners  out/'  both  in  civil 
and  military  life,  yet  I  well  remember 
this  speech  uttered  by  a  minister  of 
prominence  and  influence  in  his  de- 
nomination. I  was  a  child,  and  as  he 
continued  to  tell  of  his  appetite  and 
its  prowess,  which  rendered  absolute 
repose  after  dinner  a  paramount  neces- 
sity, I  sat  appalled.  To  my  juvenile 
mind;  the  incompatibility  of  spiritual- 
ity with  the  gastronomical  exploits 
narrated  was  immediately  apparent, 
and  to  this  day  I  retain  the  same  con- 
viction, and  could  never  accept  such 
a  priest  as  my  spiritual  adviser. 

It  was  an  eminent  composer  of 
music  who  said  that  bad  painting 
might  be  utilized  in  daubing  signs, 
but  bad  music  was  worse  than  good 
for  nothing,  since  it  was  a  serious  in- 
jury to  the  ear.  With  the  keenest  ap- 
preciation of  this  pronouncement,  for 
music  is  in  truth  the  art  divine,  I  in- 
sist that  bad  cooking  is  worse  than 


good  for  nothing  since  it  is  not  only 
destructive  of  good  material  which 
could  be  made  to  minister  to  human 
sustenance,  but  it  is  also  destructive 
of  human  health  and  life,  and  in  the 
end  is  more  than  equivalent  to  bad 
laws  and  bad  negotiations. 

The  ideal  cuisine,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  innumerable  mixed  and  highly 
spiced  dishes,  which  too  often  consti- 
tute the  menu  of  a  fashionable  dinner, 
is  the  best  material,  prepared  in  the 
best  manner,  the  manner  most  con- 
ducive to  health.  The  famous  Chinese 
gastronomer,  who  was  the  author  of 
a  cook-book,  Tuan  Mei,  was  after  all 
not  such  a  heathen  when  he  compared 
cookery  to  matrimony,  where  two 
things  served  together  should  match, 
and,  he  adds,  with  the  solemn  empha- 
sis of  the  professional,  never  allow 
carelessness  to  creep  into  the  domain 
of  the  kitchen.  So  true  it  is  that  eter- 
nal vigilance  in  the  cuisine  is  the  price 
of  soundness  of  body  and  all  the  bless- 
ings which  follow  in  its  wake.  How 
few,  comparatively,  understand  the 
making  of  that  necessary  article 
called  the  staff  of  life,  for  only  when 
it  is  good  can  it  be  called  a  staff  which 
is  a  support,  and  really,  there  are  few 
more  palatable,  indeed  more  delicious, 
eatables,  than  good  bread  and  butter, 
notwithstanding  the  contempt  for 
them  expressed  by  that  coarsest  man 
of  genius  who  ever  defamed  fame, 
Ia)rd  Byron!  The  hundred  ways  of 
cooking  eggs  can  provide  any  table 
with  a  variety  of  wholesome  comes- 
tibles, and  the  manna  of  the  sea  and 
rivers  is  within  reach  of  most  house- 
keepers. Of  the. virtues  of  beef  it  is 
needless  to  speak,  and  that  chameleon 
of  the  kitchen,  so  dear  to  the  mascu- 
line stomach,  veal,  can  be  made  to  as- 


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sume  so  many  attractive  forms,  that 
an  accomplished  cook  ought  never  to 
be  at  a  loss  with  such  a  treasure  in 
her  hands.  The  greatest  utilitarian  in 
the  kitchen  is  that  animal,  of  which 
Beauvilliers  says,  there  is  nothing  to 
be  cast  aside.  Like  Sambo's  tradi- 
tional rabbit,  he  is  good  for  anything, 
and  without  him,  the  cuisine,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  vast  majority,  would 
be  an  empty  thing, — no  ham,  no  bacon, 
no  sausage  and  no  spare-ribs.  His 
ways  are  ways  of  fatness,  and  nothing 
so  lubricates  the  wheel  of  commerce 
as  the  grease  of  his  unctous  lordship ! 
He  has  figured  in  the  past  as  in  the 
present, — most  frequently  and  most 
potentially!  He  supplies  the  farmer 
with  a  ploughshare,  and  it  is  said  that 
his  sensitive  proboscis  detected  the 
savory  odor  of  the  truffle,  and  thus 
discovered  an  edible  which  for  cen- 
turies has  been  the  delight  of  epicu- 
reans. Under  the  spell  of  Circe  he 
held  heroes  in  his  shape,  and  is  con- 
spicuous in  the  painting  of  the  Prodi- 
gal Son.  Indeed,  an  old  German 
writer  went  so  far  as  to  say,  that  if  the 
pig  had  wings  and  could  soar  above 
hedges,  he  would  be  regarded  as  the 
best  and  most  magnificent  of  fowls! 
The  immortal  Elia's  dissertation  upon 
his  charms  is  known  to  all  lovers  of 
good  literature,  yet  bepraised  and  be- 
sung  as  he  is,  I  protest  against  too  free 
a  use  of  this  viand  in  a  kitchen  which 
is  conducted  upon  principles  of  health. 
That  this  is  an  unpardonable  culinary 
heresy,  in  the  opinion  of  many,  I  am 
aware,  and  some,  perhaps,  would  con- 
vict me  of  sin  against  the  very  ethics 
of  gastronomy,  nevertheless,  I,  for 
one,  am  content  to  be  a  Hebrew  of  the 
Hebrews,  in  sedulous  avoidance  of 
this  veteran  article  of  diet,  and  am 


prone  to  attribute  my  own  soundness 
of  physique  to  the  fact  that  I  have 
never  eaten  pork!  Let  those  who 
will  partake  of  the  various  dishes 
provided  by  this  animal,  but  if  they 
prize  health,  let  them  see  to  it  that 
the  cooking  of  them  be  careful,  thor- 
ough, and  most  sure  in  every  detail. 
Apidus,  the  connoisseur  of  the  olden 
time,  gave  a  preference  to  the  pig 
over  all  other  meats,  but  at  the  same 
time  insisted  that  it  should  always 
pass  through  the  hands  of  a  very  skil- 
ful cook,  before  it  was  eaten.  There 
is  a  profound  aphorism  one  would  do 
well  to  remember  when  preparing  this 
animal  for  the  table:  La  viande,  la 
plus  delicate  est  celle,  qui  est  le  moins 
viande:  le  poisson  le  plus  exquis  est 
celui  qui  est  le  mains  poisson" 

That  man  is  carnivorous,  can  hard- 
ly be  denied,  despite  the  agitations  of 
that  question  which  have  developed 
into  numerous  experiments.  Plutarch 
was  doubtless  an  honest  vegetarian, 
but  his  treatise,  written  to  prove  that 
meal  was  not  the  natural  food  of  man, 
was  of  no  effect.  J.  J.  Rousseau  ad- 
vocated a  vegetable  diet,  and  lived 
largely  on  mutton  chops,  which  fact 
was  quite  consistent  with  his  general 
insincerity  and  pretentious  posing  be- 
fore the  world,  and  it  is  worthy  of 
remark  that  the  by  no  means  uninter- 
esting orator  and  philosopher  from 
India,  Swami  Vivakananda,  who  vis- 
ited Boston  a  few  years  ago,  and  en- 
joyed the  hospitality  of  Boston  ladies, 
and  after  his  departure  from  the  city 
ridiculed  his  fair  entertainers,  plead 
strenuously  for  vegetarianism,  and  not 
unfrequently  delivered  these  eloquent 
lectures  just  after  his  yellow  corpu- 
lency had  dined  heartly  on  roast  lamb ! 

But  nothing  is  more  important  than 


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the  proper  cooking  of  vegetables, 
which  become  digestible  or  indigest- 
ible as  they  are  prepared.  A  capable 
cook  should  be  one  of  the  chief  articles 
of  faith  in  any  household.  As  Syd- 
ney Smith  said  to  a  young  man  who 
was  compelling  all  the  guests  at  table 
to  list^  to  his  skeptical  declama- 
tions— "Well,  sir,  you  believe  in  a 
cooky  don't  you?"  Let  us  all  cherish 
this  creed,  and  it  may  not  be  amiss 
to  mention  here  that  as  the  result  of  a 
very  enterprising  and  admirable  lady's 
eflfort,  both  Boston  and  Cambridge 
have  been  provided  with  well  fur- 
nished establishments,  which  are  able 
to  supply  homes  with  excellently  weil 
cooked  food,  whereby  mistresses  and 
housekeepers  are  relieved  of  those  an- 
noyances which  naturally  accrue  from 
the  infidelity  of  slothful  and  incom- 
petent cooks.  In  other  words,  the 
cuisine  is  outside  of  the  home,  and  is 
simply  purchased  like  any  other  arti- 
cle of  merchandise.  One  can  but 
think  that  the  temporary  convenience 
afforded  by  this  plan  is  obtained  at 
the  expense  of  what  is  far  more  valu- 
able; and  the  arrangement  suggests 
an  incident  in  the  life  of  Queen 
Victoria,  whicTi  in  its  turn  may  sug- 
gest a  lesson.  When  Her  Majesty 
was  about  to  be  married,  she  urged 
upon  Ix)rd  Melbourne  the  desirabili- 
ty of  making  Prince  Albert  the  King 
Consort,  by  Act  of  Parliament.  The 
sagacious  whig  replied  promptly, — 
"For  God's  sake  ma'am,  let's  hear  no 
more  about  it.  Once  get  the  English 
nation  into  the  way  of  making  kings, 
and  you'll  get  it  into  the  way  of  un- 
making them!"  So  it  might  prove 
with  the  unmaking  of  the  kitchen. 
The  temporary  convenience  may  be- 
come a  rule. 


The  inference  that  a  constant  and 
careful  attention  to  the  classics  of  the 
table  is  likely  to  produce  epicures  and 
gluttons,  is  hardly  legitimate.  It  is 
the  healthful  and  not  the  luxurious 
cuisine  which  should  engage  the 
housekeeper's  time  and  thought.  The 
famous  feasts  and  saturnalia  of  the 
orients  were  not  designed  for  health 
of  mind  or  body.  Sardanapaltis  of- 
fered a  thousand  pieces  of  gold  to 
him  who  would  produce  a  new  dish, 
because  his  maxim,  and  the  precept 
he  desired  to  have  engraved  upon 
his  tomb  was,  "Eat,  drink  and  amuse 
thyself:  all  else  is  vanity!"  Natural 
craving  for  food  should  never  be 
allowed  to  degenerate  into  mere  sen- 
suality, or  even  a  hypersensuous 
pleasure.  The  notorious  feasts  of 
Persian  and  Assyrian  despots  were 
simply  one  of  the  indices  which  point- 
ed to  natures  thoroughly  depraved 
in  every  way.  The  Roman  emperors 
who  copied  the  recklessness  of  ex- 
penditure, and  prodigal  luxury  of 
these  ancient  monarchs,  imitated  their 
vices  as  well,  and  perpetuated  the 
cruelty  and  tyranny  which  character- 
ized the  sensualist  of  a  previous  age. 
Heliogabalus  had  been  guilty  of  more 
than  one  excess,  before  he  invented 
and  perfected  his  famous  lobster 
rissoles.  The  land  of  sensual  feasting 
produced  Zoroaster,  and  Socrates 
gave  frugal  collations,  where  the  cheer 
was  of  an  intellectual  more  than  a 
corporeal  nature.  He  was  content  with 
repasts, — 

"Light  and  choice. 
Of  Attic  taste  and  wine," — 

in  the  company  of  a  few  friends 
who  were  given  to  high  think- 
ing, while  LucuUus  required  an 
unusual  outlay  of  money  for  a  dinner 

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EVERY   WOMAN   A   COOK 


when  he  dined  alone, — "when  Lucul- 
lus  dines  with  Lucullus," — as  he  said 
to  his  cook.  The  gluttonous  feasts  of 
Nero,  Claudius,  Verres,  Tiberius, 
Domitian  and  Caligula  proclaim  the 
men.  It  should  be  remembered  too, 
that  Epicurus,  in  proposing  pleasure 
as  the  supreme  good,  qualified  his 
doctrine  by  the  maxim  that  temper- 
ance is  essential  to  the  enjoyment  of 
noble  and  durable  pleasures  which  are 
proper  to  the  nature  of  man,  and  the 
epicurean  is  not  necessarily  a  sensu- 
alist. Yet  Plato  denounced  the 
theories  of  Epicurus,  preferred  olives 
to  all  kinds  of  food,  and  made  most 
of  his  meals  on  pure,  well  cooked 
bread !  Who  then  shall  deny  the  dig- 
nity of  simplicity  in  eating?  Marcus 
Aurelius  could  not  excuse  gluttony 
or  sensuality,  and  too  many  men  of 
genius  have  been  grossly  belied  in 
being  accused  of  inordinate  fondness 
for  eating.  Talleyrand  gave  sumpt- 
uous dinners  as  a  feature  of  diplo- 
macy, when  Careme,  his  culinary  di- 
rector was  requested  to  exercise  his 
subtlest  skill,  yet  Talleyrand  ate  only 
one  sqtiare  meal  a  day,  and  boldly 
avowed  his  policy  to  give  fine  dinners 
and  keep  well  with  women,  as  essen- 
tials to  success  in  life.  When  Dr. 
Johnson  said,  *The  finest  landscape 
in  the  world  is  improved  by  a  good  inn 
in  the  foreground,"  the  thought  of  a 
quiet  time  for  reflection  was  perhaps 
in  his  mind,  in  spite  of  his  numerous 
cups  of  tea.  Sydney  Smith  is  cred- 
ited with  the  words;  "My  idea  of 
heaven  is  eating  foies  gras  to  the 
sound  of  trumpets."  Yet  he  was  not 
a  gourmand,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
doubt  this  remark,  as  uttered  by  him, 
as  I  question  many  of  the  slanderous 
statements  against  Napoleon.     Medi- 


ocrity is  too  fond  of  belittling  its  su- 
periors, and  mediocrity  on  stilts  is  ever 
prone  to  defamation.  Besides,  the 
misfortune  or  penaltv  of  wit  is  that 
the  perpetrator  has  the  wit  of  other 
people  thrust  upon  him.  That  a  man 
like  Shelley  should  make  a  breakfast 
upon  oranges,  a  slice  of  bread  and  but- 
ter, and  a  bunch  of  grapes,  is  what 
might  be  expected  of  the  author  of  the 
Sky-lark.  Nor  are  we  apt  to  doubt 
the  partiality  of  Horace  for  figs,  or 
Tasso  for  sweetmeats,  or  that  Goethe 
preferred  sweet  champagne  to  a 
stronger  drink.  And  why  should  not 
Charles  Lamb  be  fond  of  apple-dump- 
lings? Surely  that  dear,  pure  soul 
would  not  enjoy  anything  more  gross. 
If  dress  and  address  are  so  essen- 
tial to  the  career  of  a  man,  the  proper 
setting  and  serving  of  foods  are  no 
trifles  in  the  history  of  a  dinner.  Well 
cooked  food,  served  prettily  and  even 
elegantly,  is  altogether  the  province 
of  the  intelligent  mistress.  The  femi- 
nine hand  here  finds  opportunity  for 
deftness  and  skill,  and  the  feminine 
mind  and  taste  a  wide  field  for  its  ex- 
ercise. What  is  more  distasteful  to  a 
refined  guest  than  immense  quantities 
of  food,  badly  or  clumsily  served. 
One  of  the  greatest  gastronomers  of 
the  world,  Careme,  prided  himself 
upon  the  artistic  arrangement  and 
serving  of  his  dinners,  and  one  of  his 
triumphs  is  described  by  Lady  Mor- 
gan, when  he  had  the  position  of  chef 
to  Baron  Rothschild,  at  the  Chateau 
de  Boulogne.  Says  that  charming 
writer: — "To  do  justice  to  the  science 
and  research  of  a  dinner  so  served 
would  require  a  knowledge  of  the  art 
equal  to  that  which  produces  it, — its 
character,  however,  was  that  it  was  in 
season,  that  it  was  up  to  its  time,  that 


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it  was  in  the  spirit  of  ibe  age,  that  there 
was  no  perruque  in  its  ccmiposition, 
no  trace  of  the  wisdom  of  our  ances- 
tors in  a  single  dish,  no  high-spiced 
sauces,  no  dark-brown  gravies,  no  fla- 
vor of  cayenne  and  allspice,  no  tincture 
of  catsup  and  walnut  pickles,  no  vis- 
ible agency  of  those  vulgar  elements 
of  the  good  old-time  cooking,  fire  and 
water.  Distillations  of  the  most  deli- 
cate viands,  extracted  in  silver  dews 
with  chemical  precision, 

*On  tepid  clouds  of  rising  steam' 
formed  the  base  of  all;  where  every 
meat  presented  its  own  natural  aroma, 
and  every  vegetable  its  own  shade  of 
verdure;  where  the  mayonnaise  was 
fried  in  ice, — ^like  Ninon's  description 
of  Sevigne's  heart, — ^and  the  tempered 
chill  of  the  plombiere  anticipated  the 
stronger  shock  and  broke  it,  of  the  ex- 
quisite avalanche,  which  with  the  hue 
and  odor  of  fresh  gathered  nectarines, 
satisfied  every  sense  and  dissipated 
every  coarser  flavor.  With  less  gen- 
ius than  went  to  the  composition  of 
this  dinner  men  have  written  epic 
poems." 

With  sudi  ardent  appreciation  can 
one  be  astonished  at  triumphs  of  cook- 
ery, or  wonder  that  cooks  are  prover- 
bially fond  of  admiration?  As  Hor- 
ace says^  there  are  more  ways  to  fame 
than  one,  and  many  names  are  to  be 
found  among  the  wearers  of  the  cor- 
don bleu.  Beauvilliers,  La  Reyniere, 
Francatelli,  Ude,  Sayer,Vatel,  Savarin 
and  Careme  are  not  the  only  celebri- 
ties, and  all  these  artists  thirsted  for 
discriminating  approbation.  The  Duke 
of  Wellington  lost  his  chef  through 
sheer  indifference.  The  old  soldier 
ate  sparingly,  and  in  silence,  with  the 
sole  aim  of  satisfjring  hunger  and  re- 


cuperating exhausted  strength.  He 
never  praised  a  dish,  and  the  disgusted 
chef  sought  a  more  admiring  host. 
The  elder  Dumas  boasted  of  his  cul- 
inary accomplishments,  but  Paris  was 
disposed  to  be  skeptical,  and  hinted  that 
he  borrowed  in  this,  as  well  as  in  his 
literary  ventures,  and  one  connoisseur 
remarked :  "It  is  with  his  carp  as  with 
his  novels, — others  do  them,  and  he 
adds  his  name."  Poor  Vatel  was 
thin-skinned  beyond  all  of  the  frater- 
nity, and  finally  committed  suicide 
because  a  certain  choice  fish  did  not 
arrive  in  time  for  His  Majesty's  din- 
ner at  the  Castle  of  Chantilly.  The 
Duke  of  Beaufort,  who  neglected  no 
opportunity  to  compliment  his  chefs, 
was  aroused  one  night  by  a  knock  at 
his  chamber  door,  and  learned  that  his 
untimely  visitor  was  his  chef,  who  had 
been  to  the  opera,  and  while  listening 
to  Donizetti's  music  had  conceived  the 
idea  of  a  new  dessert,  which  he 
begged  leave  to  announce  under  the 
name  of  the  composer. 

The  dessert  is  said  to  be  to  the  din- 
ner what  the  madrigal  is  to  literature, 
— it  is  the  poetry  of  the  kitchen,  and 
hence  is  generally  entrusted  to  the 
fancy  of  woman,  who  is  supposed  to 
handle  these  dainties  with  consum- 
mate skill.  The  present  age  has 
gained  little  in  the  creation  of  desserts, 
as  the  English  kitchens  in  centuries 
past  abounded  in  pasties,  and  pies 
and  possets,  with  which  cooks  of  to- 
day are  little  familiar,  and  the  chances 
are  that  the  pies  of  that  period  were 
better  made  than  much  of  the  traves- 
ty of  the  modern  kitchens.  "Do  you 
eat  pie  ?"  was  once  asked  of  Emerson. 
"What  is  pie  for?*' — was  the  answer, 
which,   to  say  the  least,  was  philo- 


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EVERY  WOMAN   A   COOK 


sophic.  Posset  was  not  unlike  a  des- 
sert quite  popular  in  the  Southern 
states,  under  the  name  of  syllabub, 
pleasant  and  harmless,  but  the  cooking 
of  pie,  like  the  cooking  of  pig,  should 
be  an  exceedingly  careful  operation. 

The  prevalent  heresy  that  women 
of  culture  and  accomplishments  arc 
generally  incompetent  as  cooks,  ought 
long  since  to  have  vanished  before  the 
light  of  true  orthodoxy.  It  is  the  ig- 
norant woman  and  the  fool,  who  is 
most  likely  to  spoil  the  cooking.  The 
woman  of  good  taste  and  intelligence 
can  be  trusted  for  a  wholesome  meal, 
far  beyond  the  ignoramus,  whose  only 
claim  to  good  housewifery  is  her  ne- 
gation in  other  directions,  and  the 
ability  to  play  a  sonata  or  write  an 
essay,  by  no  means  argues  inability 
to  prepare  a  meal.  Long  established 
prejudice,  however,  is  difficult  to  up- 
root. I  once  heard  a  venerable  Con- 
gressman,— recently  returned  to  Con- 
gress from  his  state  by  enthusiastic 
accclamation, — a  man  chivalrous,  no- 
ble and  incorruptible,  whose  career  in 
peace  and  war  recalls  the  Knights  of 
the  Crusades,  the  preux  chevalier, 
sans  peur  et  sans  reproche,  say  that 
housekeepers  who  were  devoted  to 
music  were  apt  to  let  the  buttercakes 
burn,  and  in  another  instance,  an  able 
editor  of  a  prominent  magazine  ex- 
pressed his  doubt  that  there  were  any 
ladies  who  were  able  to  cook  anything 
except  caramels.  As  long  as  men  are 
"frankly  human,''  and  await  meals 
with  that  impatience  and  irritability 
which  have  been  known  to  interrupt 
the  god-like  serenity  of  a  judge  and 
even  a  bishop,  so  long  will  feminine 
administration  of  the  cuisine  be  con- 
sidered a  l^itimate  subject  for  criti- 
cism, but  surely  in  this  question  it  may 


be  assumed  that  the  proof  of  the  pud- 
ding is  in  the  eating.  There  have 
been  hostesses  of  the  past  and  the 
present  worthy  of  all  praise,  but  what 
hostesses  have  proven  themselves  the 
sources  of  inspiration  to  men?  Un- 
questionably they  were  women  of  cul- 
ture and  they  were  excellent  cooks. 
They  were  women  whose  homes  af- 
forded opportunity  for  intellectual 
conversation,  where  mind  was  stimu- 
lated and  thought  developed,  and  they 
themselves  were  potent  social  forces 
with  whom  the  drawing-room  reached 
its  climax  of  importance  and  influence. 
The  company  was  choice  and  fine,  so 
was  the  menu,  and  such  dinners  and 
such  suppers  were  not  after  the  order 
of  Roman  extravagance  in  the  past, 
or  the  New  World  millionaire's  dis- 
play in  the  present.  These  women 
were  not  rich  in  worldly  possessions, 
but  were  tactful  enough  to  make  the 
best  of  what  they  had  and  understood 
the  fine  art  of  cookery  too  well  to 
spoil  the  charm  of  conversation  by 
setting  before  guests  a  badly  cooked 
or  clumsily  arranged  repast.  It  may 
be  reasonably  inferred  that  no  meals 
were  better  cooked  or  more  tastefully 
served  than  the  dinners  presented  by 
these  highly  cultured  women  of  the 
eighteenth  century  scdons.  I  do  not 
believe  that  one  ever  allowed  her  but- 
tercakes to  bum.  Surely,  a  fair  jury 
will  accept  indisputable  evidence. 
When  Fontenelle  heard  of  the  death  of 
Madame  de  Tencin,  at  whose  table 
he  frequently  sat,  he  grieved  with  the 
sincerity  of  his  convictions  and  said: — 
"It  is  an  irreparable  loss.  She  knew 
my  tastes  and  offered  me  those  dishes 
I  preferred."  D'Alembert  took  his 
breakfast  with  Mile,  de  Lespinasse 
and  his  suppers  with  Madame  G€of- 


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227 


fdn,  and  when  death  robbed  him  of 
both,  exclaimed  sorrowfully:  "Alas,  I 
have  neither  mornings  nor  evenings 
leftr 

Horace  Walpole  praised  the  suppers 
of  Madame  du  Deffand  and  described 
her  table  as  the  place  where  genius 
and  learning  were  wont  to  meet. 
This  discerning  lady  had  a  keen  ap- 
preciation of  the  fact  that  man  is 
most  easily  influenced  through  his 
stomach,  and  once  sarcastically  re- 
marked that  "supper  was  one  of  the 
four  ends  of  man."  It  is  well  known 
that  the  "philosophes"  and  celebrities 
of  the  day  were  constant  guests  in 
these  notable  drawing-rooms,  and 
many  a  work  which  posterity  has  pro- 
nounced immortal  was  first  read  to  an 
audience  in  one  of  these  salons.  So- 
ciety everywhere  has  felt  the  influence 
of  these  women,  and  from  the  day 
when  Madame  de  Rambouillet  con- 
ceived her  idea  of  the  salon,  the  enter- 
taining of  guests  has  been  a  distinctly 
different  thing.  Let  Moliere  ridicule 
Les  Preciuses  as  he  might,  they  intro- 
duced beautiful  manners,  and  ruled 
out  vulgarity  and  boorishness,  and 
since  man  must  eat,  taught  him  to  do 
it  with  grace  and  discretion.  In  this 
land  where  the  horn  of  plenty  empties 
its  gifts  so  lavishly,  ignorance  is  the 
parent  of  waste,  and  nowhere  more 
than  in  cooking.  It  is  true  that  there 
are  housewives  whose  natural  sense  of 
thrift  is  a  deterrent  to  wastefulness, 
and  they  unconsciously  combine  rea- 
sonable proportions,  just  as  Monseiur 
Jourdain  talked  prose  without  know- 
ing it,  but  as  pharmacy  demands  exact 
measurements  for  the  preservation  of 
health  and  life,  so  the  compounds  of 
the  kitchen  should  be  wrought  with  an 
accuracy  which  insures  the  end  for 


which  it  is  designed — ^the  building  up 
of  a  sound  physique.  The  hiunan 
stomach  ought  never  to  be  subjected 
to  the  results  €>f  guesswork,  and  there 
ought  to  be  no  more  uncertainty  in 
the  achievement  of  a  loaf  of  bread 
than  in  the  working  of  a  problem  in 
mathematics.  Wind  and  weather  may 
defeat  the  best  laid  schemes,  and  even 
Attic  honey  had  its  impurities,  but  in- 
telligent carefulness  cannot  fail  of  gen- 
eral success.  I  do  not  forget  the  dili- 
gence with  which  Virginia  housekeep- 
ers supervised  the  preparation  of 
bread,  and,  consequently,  it  was  un- 
surpassed by  the  best  bakery  in  Vien- 
na, where  bread  is  claimed  to  be  the 
highest  exponent  of  culinary  knowl- 
edge and  skill,  nor  do  I  forget  Dean 
Stanley's  enjoyment  of  the  luscious 
loaf,  or  his  bon-mot,  which  he  uttered 
with  charming  grace  of  manner. 
"You  Virginians  are  the  best  bread 
people  I  ever  saw."  It  may  not 
be  unpardonable  to  say  here  that 
I  have  always  made  profound 
obeisance  to  the  jokes  concerning 
the  F.  F.  V.'s  and  the  sage  in- 
quiry which  seeks  intelligence  of  some 
second  family  of  Virginia.  They  are 
hoary  and  hence  command  my  rever- 
ence, yet  in  the  first  families  each  mis- 
tress knew  to  a  dish,  and  all  its  com- 
ponent parts,  what  was  coming  on  her 
table,  and  every  other  detail  of  house- 
keeping was  as  familiar  to  her  as 
household  words.  The  cook-book 
called  the  Virginia  Housewife  is  but 
a  compendium  of  the  knowledge  and 
practice  of  these  faithful  mistresses 
who  looked  diligently  after  the  ways 
of  their  kitchens.  Wealth  only  added 
to  their  duties,  since  it  was  the  occa- 
sion of  more  guests,  and  it  can  be  safe- 
ly said  that  throughout  the  Southern 


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228  IMPERIAL  AUTUMN 

states,  with  rare  excq)tions,  every  ern  markets,  and  in  a  few  days  after 
woman  is  a  cook.  "Ah,  what  waffles  the  Prussians  entered  Paris,  French 
and  egg-bread  I  got  in  Richmond,  like  women  were  selling  thousands  of  lit- 
the  ambrosia  of  the  gods !"  said  a  Bos-  tie  pates  to  the  invading  army, 
tonian  to  me.  Yet  good  cooking,  like  Wherever  there  are  homes  there  must 
the  light  of  science,  is  bound  by  no  be  cooks,  and  since  civilized  man  can- 
limitations  of  latitude.  Many  women  not  live  without  them,  every  woman, 
in  the  South  are  making  comfortable  whatever  may  be  her  accomplishments 
incomes  by  the  sale  of  pickles,  pre-  in  other  directions,  ought  to  know 
serves  and  other  products,  in  North-  how  to  cook. 


Imperial  Autumn 

By  Charles  Hanson  Towne 

I   KNOW  when  Autumn,  kinglike  in  his  cloak 
Of  scarlet  and  of  purple,  shall  appear 
After  the  Indian-Summer  haze  and  smoke. 
The  royal  guest  of  the  slow-dying  year, 
My  heart  shall  pay  him  homage,  and  my  head 

Shall  be  uncovered  when  his  lordly  train 
Moves  as  a  long  procession  of  the  dead 
Through  the  light  rain. 

There  passed,  long  since.  Spring  with  her  smiling  eyes — 

Pale  princess  who  received  my  heart's  hushed  praise — 
And  in  her  wake  came,  as  from  far  emprise, 

A  queen  called  Summer,  crowned  with  greenest  bays. 
But  they  are  gone,  and  through  the  dusk  and  dark 

Comes  one  more  regal  still  in  cloth-of-gold. 
O  heart  of  mine,  sing  to  this  king,  and  mark 

The  shadows  fold. 

How  proudly  through  the  land  with  state  and  pomp 

He  marches,  all  unmindful  that  too  soon 
His  train  shall  vanish  beyond  moor  and  swamp. 

Beyond  the  hills  where  went  the  golden  June. 
But  sing,  O  heart,  for  him !    Ere  long  his  day 

Of  triumphing  and  lordliness  shall  cease. 
And  he  shall  go,  like  all  of  us,  that  way 

To  dreams — and  peace. 


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A  Dematerialized  Scoop 

By  William  Forster  Brown 


PRESCOTT   slammed   the  bat- 
tered tin  cover  over  the  type- 
writer,   tossed    a    half-dozen 
sheets  of  "copy"  through  the 
mouth  of  a  brass  tube  gaping  insatia- 
bly from  the  wall,  and  got  up  off  his 
stool  yawning  drearily. 

"If  Forster  or  Stub  Allen  would 
show  up,  I'd  go  home,"  he  thought, 
glancing  forlornly  at  the  clock.  "Lord, 
but  I'm  tired!  I  believe  every  bone 
in  my  body  is  doing  a  solo  ache — I'd 
give  five  dollars  this  minute  for  a  bath 
and  four  hours  good  sleep;  no  such 
luck,  though.  Ten  to  one  none  of  the 
boys  will  be  in  for  hours ;  Forster's  in 
Lynn  reporting  the  big  strike  and 
goodness  knows  where  the  rest  of  the 
bunch  are — if  I  went  home  Nichols 
would  be  sure  to  send  down  an  assign- 
ment he  wouldn't  trust  to  a  cub,  and 
when  he  found  I'd  left  the  place  be- 
fore any  of  the  regular  men  got  in, 
he'd  raise  particular  Hades." 

The  reporter  selected  a  chair — 
seemingly  the  most  trustworthy  in  the 
collection  of  backless,  armless,  legless 
wrecks  that  served  the  young  men  of 
the  Daily  Argus  as  resting  places — 
and  tilting  it  in  a  corner  at  the  precise 
angle  experiment  had  proved  com- 
bined a  maximum  of  comfort  with  a 
minimum  of  balancing  effort,  leaned 
his  head  against  the  wall. 

"I  suppose  I  may  as  well  try  to 
work  up  something  for  the  column 
I've  got  to  do  for  the  Sunday  supple- 
ment," he  grumbled  audibly.  "Blessed 


if  I  can  think  what  it'll  be,  though,  my 
head's  as  empty  of  ideas  as  a  quick- 
lunch  stew  of  oysters." 

Prescott's  eyes  travelled  dully  along 
the  discolored  ceiling  over  his  head 
and  down  the  scarred  and  dirty  walls 
of  the  familiar  room,  seeking  vainly 
for  inspiration,  until  all  at  once  his 
glance  stopped  at  a  rough  drawing  of 
a  ship  outlined  in  bold  blue-pencil 
strokes  on  a  bit  of  bare  plaster. 

"That's  pretty  good,"  he  com- 
mented mentally,  "Cleverly  must  have 
done  it ;  that  f  ellow'd  have  been  a  sure 
enough  artist  if  he'd  only  stud — .  By 
Jove!"  dragging  a  newspaper  from 
his  pocket,  "that  puts  me  in  mind  of 
something.  I  wonder  if  I  couldn't 
work  a  column  out  of  that  steam 
whaler  I  saw  lying  at  Constitution 
Wharf  this  forenoon?  I  heard  some 
one  say  she  had  just  got  in  from  a 
three  years'  voyage  in  the  Arctic.  I'll 
see  if  Cleverly  has  got  an)rthing  about 
her  in  his  'Water  Front  Items.' " 

Unfolding  his  copy  of  the  Argus, 
Prescott  glowered  a  moment  at  an  ar- 
ticle of  his  own  that  "Crab"  Nichols — 
merciless  editor  -  in  -  chief  —  had  cut 
down  to  a  mere  three  inches  of  space, 
and  presently  discovered  what  he  was 
seeking. 

"Old  salts,"  the  item  began,  "who 
in  the  early  fifties  sailed  out  of  New 
Bedford  or  Edgartown  in  search  of 
sperm-oil  and  whalebone,  will  be  in- 
terested to  learn  that  yesterday  after- 
noon  the  steam  brigantine   Narwhal, 

229 


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A   DEMATERIALIZED   SCOOP 


Captain  Ezra  Thomas,  was  docked  at 
Constitution  Wharf  to  be  unloaded ;  it 
is  rumored  that  she  is  to  be  stripped 
and  eventually  cut  down  into  a  coal- 
barge.  This  whaler,  one  of  the  last 
vessels  to  engage  in  a  business  that 
one  time  claimed  over  seven  hundred 
sail,  has  just  returned  from  a  three 
years'  cruise  in  the  Arctic  Ocean. 

"Captain  Thomas  states  that  the 
voyage  was  a  failure,  very  few  whales 
having  been  sighted  during  the  entire 
three  years;  the  Captain  declares  em- 
phatically that  whale-fishing — even 
when  backed  by  modem  steam  and 
gunpowder — ^has  ceased  to  be  a  prof- 
itable enterprise.  If  this  be  true — 
and  it  must  be  admitted  that  the  Cap- 
tain backs  his  opinion  with  the  fact 
of  an  almost  empty  hold — ^the  disman- 
tling of  the  Narwhal  marks  the  pass- 
ing of  a  great  industry." 

Prescott  re-read  the  item  carefully. 
"I  reckon  that'll  give  me  the  start  I 
want,"  he  thought,  shutting  his  eyes. 
"Fll  borrow  Clev's  last  sentence  for  a 
title :  'The  Passing  of  a  Great  Indus- 
try/ that's  a  winner  all  right.  Next 
I'll  get  some  facts  from  the  encyclo- 
paedia about  Edgartown  and  New 
Bedford  when  those  two  places  were 
famous  as  whale-ship  ports.  I  must 
manage  to  find  a  description  of  an  old- 
fashioned  whaler  somewhere,  proba- 
bly some  old  shellback  around  the 
docks  will  be  only  too  glad  to  give  me 
information  enough  to  fill  a  book,  if  I 
ask  him.  I'll  begin  with  my  statis- 
tics ;  go  on  with  the  stuff  I  get  out  of 
the  shellback — sandwiching  in  a  few 
'There  she  blows !'  and  *Starn  all,  for 
your  lives*  on  the  Frank  Bullen  order, 
to  heighten  the  eflfect — ^and  then  draw 
a  sharp  contrast  between  the  old  order 
of  things  and  the  new  by  picturing  the 


Narwhal — ^the  last  of  her  kind — g^en 
over  to  King  Coal." 

Thus  Prescott  began  to  plan  and 
shape  the  forthcoming  article  in  his 
thoughts ;  and  in  spite  of  aching  bones 
his  interest  and  enthusiasm  grew. 

"I'm  blessed  if  I  don't  go  down  to 
the  wharf  and  interview  Captain 
Thomas!"  he  exclaimed  aloud. 
"That'll  be  fine.  It  stands  to  reason 
a  man  that  has  been  in  the  whaling 
business  all  his  life — ^probably — ^knows 
more  interesting  facts  about  it  than 
are  to  be  found  in  a  hundred  books. 
Maybe  the  Captain  will  let  me  kodak 
him  standing  by  the  trjrworics— or 
whatever  it  is  they  have  nowadays: 
I'd  call  the  picture  'The  Last  Whaler,' 
and  I'll  bet  money  it'll  make  a  hit  witli 
Old  Crab.  He  said  he  wanted  some- 
thing that  wasn't  stereotyped,  and  my 
'Passing  of  a  Great  Industry'  will  be 
up  to  date  all  right.  Soon  as  some 
one  relieves  me  I'll  get  a  hustle  on  and 
go  down  to  the  dodcs.  Thunder  and 
guns !  but  the  back  of  this  confounded 
chair  is  sawing  into  my  shoulder- 
blades — if  it  wasn't  for  that  I'd  try 
and  catch  forty  winks  while  I  waited. 

'*Hello!  Here's  an  article  in  the 
paper  that  Forster  must  be  responsible 
for,  'Curious  facts  about  the  Eskimos' ; 
guess  I'll  read  it;  I  may  find  some 
points  that'll  be  useful  as  leads  in 
drawing  out  Captain  Thomas;  if  he 
spent  three  years  in  the  Arctic  he  must 
be  pretty  well  up  in  Eskimology. 
What  a  lot  of  jaw-cracking  words 
Forster's  rung  in?  'Tomak,  tomar- 
suk,  angakok,  kivigtek,  tukko' — 
whew !  If  he  knows  what  half  of  'em 
mean  I'm  mistaken." 

Faithful  to  his  resolve,  the  sleepy 
reporter  stumbled  presently  over  the 


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231 


narrow  stairs  into  the  street  and  hail- 
ing a  passing  Atlantic  Avenue  car, 
was  eventually  deposited  at  the  head 
of  Constitution  Wharf. 

"Kinder  dark  down  here,  'till  yqu 
get  used  to  it,"  Captain  Thomas  ob- 
served, as  Prescott — after  a  prelim- 
inary self-introduction  and  brief  state- 
ment of  his  desire — groped  his  way 
through  the  semi-gloom  of  the  Nar- 
whaVs  main  cabin  and  followed  the 
captain  into  a  somewhat  smaller  com- 
partment, *•  These  are  my  quarters; 
jes'  sit  down  anywhere  and  I'll  light 
up  in  a  minit' — there!  that  ain't  so 
bad,  for  whale  ile,  is  it  ?" 

"Pretty  good  light,"  agreed  the  re- 
porter, glancing  around  the  dingy 
walls  with  interest. 

"I  ain't  much  used  to  newspaper 
fellers,"  the  Captain  announced,  seat- 
ing himself  opposite  his  visitor,  "dun- 
*no's  I  recollect  having  met  one  afore. 
I  ain't  jes'  sartin  what  'tis  you  want 
to  know — if  there's  anything  interest- 
in*  in  livin'  most  three  years  in  ice  and 
snow  and  lonesomeness,  an'  dark  half 
the  time— expectin'  every  watch  the 
mate'Il  tell  you  the  scurvy's  broke  out, 
an'  if  that  don't  happen,  wondering 
how  long  it'll  be  afore  a  leg  or  an 
arm'll  begin  to  mortify  where  they 
wuz  frost-bit'  last,  an'  have  to  be 
chopped  off — I  ain't  seen  it;  'specially 
when  you  come  back  poorer  than  you 
went  out — whales  being  scarcer'n 
hen's  teeth  all  the  time;  but  heave 
ahead  with  your  questions  and  I'll  do 
my  best  to  answer  'em." 

*•  Perhaps  you  might  begin  by  tell- 
ing me  how  long  you've  been  in  the 
business.'*''  suggested  Prescott.  'T 
judge  it  a  great  many  years." 

**Ever  since  I  was  as  high  as  this 
old  hooker's  bulwarks,"  answered  the 


Captain  promptly.  "I  made  my  fust 
voyage  out  o'  New  Bedford  in  '52  in 
the  Grampus — Zeke  Coffin  master — 
he's  been  dead  these  thirty  years;  an' 
I  was  in  the  Octnulgee  with  Abo'  Os- 
borne of  Edgartown  when  that  d — d 
pirate  Semmes  burnt  her — that  wuz 
in  '64.  I  had  sort  of  speaking  ac- 
quaintance with  Semmes  when  he  wuz 
lighthouse  inspector  and  used  to  come 
to  Edgartown  and  Cape  Pogue  Light 
afore  the  war,  an'  I  told  him  to  his 
face,  when  we  wuz  lugged  aboard  the 
Alabama,  that  he'd  git  his  pay  for 
burnin'  defenceless  whalers;  an'  by 
George  he  did — when  he  run  afoul  of 
the  Kearsage.  I  wuz  mighty  tickled 
when  I  heard — " 

'T  suppose  whale-fishing  was  more 
profitable  in  those  days  than  it  is 
now  ?"  queried  Prescott,  producing  his 
note-book  and  turning  its  face  toward 
the  dim  light.  *T  saw  in  this  morn- 
ing's paper  that  the  Narwhal  hadn't 
been  very  sue — "  The  reporter  broke 
off  abruptly,  staring  over  the  captain's 
head  at  a  luminous  object  hanging 
against  the  cabin  bulkhead.  "If  you 
will  pardon  my  curiosity.  Captain,"  he 
said  bluntly,  "Td  very  much  like  to 
have  you  tell  me  what  that  thing  is, 
over  there?  It  can't  be  a  lamp — ^yet 
it  appears  to  be  giving  out  almost  as 
much  light  as  your  whale  oil." 

Captain  Thomas  looked  over  his 
own  shoulder  and  scratched  his  head 
dubiously. 

** Blamed  if  I  know  myself,"  he  an- 
swered after  a  pause.  "Mighty  queer 
for  a  piece  of  stun'  to  shine  that  way, 
ain't  it?  I've  put  in  a  good  many 
hours  trying  to  figger  out  where  the 
light  come  from ;  but  I'm  blessed  if  I 
can  tell  any  better'n  I  could  the  fust 
time  I  seen  it.     I'll  tell  you  where  I 


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got  it,  though,  if  you  want  to  hear  it ; 
mebbe  the  yarnll  fit  into  what  you  are 
looking  for  to  put  in  your  paper." 

"That  stun',"  the  Captain  went  on, 
as  Prescott  nodded  an  eager  assent, 
"wuz  giv'  to  me  by  an  old  Eskimo 
Angakok — that's  Innuit  for  priest,  or 
medicine-man — that  I  picked  off  of  an 
ice-floe  in  Davis  Strait  the  second  year 
we  wuz  out.  He'd  got  thrown  on  to 
the  floe  somehow,  and  his  kajak  ripped 
and  smashed  in  the  floating  ice. 
Being  old  an'  feeble  it  wuz  'bout  all  he 
could  do  to  crawl  out  of  the  water  and 
git  on  firm  ice — all  his  grub  and 
spears  an'  things  drifted  off  an'  wuz 
lost. 

"When  the  second  mate  got  him 
aboard  the  Narwhal  the  old  feller  wuz 
pretty  nigh  gone  from  hunger  an'  ex- 
haustion— ^he'd  been  on  the  floe  most 
two  days  afore  our  lookout  sighted 
him — but  I  patched  him  up  the  best  I 
could  an'  giv'  him  some  stuff  out  of 
the  medicine  chest.  'Twan't  no  use, 
though,  for  he  lived  less'n  a  week. 

"An  hour  or  two  afore  he  died,  jes' 
as  I  wuz  goin'  to  try  some  different 
medicine  on  him  out  of  the  chest — you 
see,  I'd  kinder  taken  a  liking  to  the  old 
feller  an'  hated  to  have  him  die;  we 
used  to  yarn  together  in  a  sort  of  hash 
of  Innuit — I  mean  Eskimo  talk — an' 
English  that  wuz  mighty  entertaining 
to  me,  he  hauled  that  funny  stun'  out 
of  a  sealskin  bag  that  hung  round  his 
neck,  and  put  it  in  my  hand.  Near  as 
I  could  make  out  from  his  talk,  Kud- 
lah — that  wuz  the  Eskimo's  name — 
wanted  me  to  take  the  stun'  as  pay- 
ment for  gitting  him  off  the  ice  an' 
doctorin'  him. 

"The  old  man  thought  his  stun'  wuz 
a  god  of  some  sort  that  had  fell  from 
the  sky  'way  up  North  somewhere — 


nigh  the  Pole,  I  reckon,"  the  Captain 
continued,  rising  and  walking  toward 
the  blotch  of  light  on  the  bulkhead. 
"He  told  me  he'd  done  'great  magic' 
with  it,  predicting  storms  an'  famines 
an'  such  like,  an'  gained  great  honor 
from  his  tribe.  Kudlah  called  the 
thing  *angakunek,'  meaning  wise  an' 
powerful — 'wonder-stone'  you  might 
say — an'  called  it  his  Tornak,  or  guar- 
dian spirit. 

"The  Angakok  got  pretty  weak  after 
a  while  an'  the  last  words  he  said 
wasn't  very  plain.  Near  as  I  could 
make  them  out  he  wuz  tryin'  to  tell 
me  that  a  great  white  Tornarsuk — 
god,  that  is — who  lived  in  the  North, 
sometimes  talked  inside  the  stun'.  It's 
curios,  ain't  it?"  concluded  the  Cap- 
tain, giving  the  stone  to  Prescott,  "I'll 
bet  you  never  saw  anything  like  it.  I 
never  did." 

The  reporter  examined  the  object  in 
his  hand  with  keen  interest. 

Spherical  in  shape  and  highly  pol- 
ished, the  stone  was  about  the  size  of 
a  small  cannon-ball,  and  indeed,  as  it 
was  black  and  heavy,  very  similar.  It 
seemed  to  be  made  of  some  substance 
resembling  glass  or  other  semi-trans- 
parent material,  and  gave  forth  a  sin- 
gularly soft  and  phosphorescent  glow. 
At  the  very  beginning  of  his  inspec- 
tion, Prescott  decided  that  shape  and 
polish  of  the  stone,  and  also  the  small 
hole  extending  through  its  centre  and 
by  which  it  had  hung  from  the  wall 
suspended  on  a  piece  of  marline,  were 
not  the  result  of  some  freak  of  nature, 
but  had  been  accomplished  by  human 
hands;  whether  the  ball  itself  was  a 
natural  fragment  of  rock  or  stalactite, 
or  had  been  manufactured,  baffled 
Prescott's  meagre  knowledge  of  geolo- 
gy to  determine. 


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233 


"Is  it  always  lighted  up  this  way?" 
inquired  the  reporter. 

"Only  in  the  night  or  here,  where 
tain't  never  very  bright,"  answered 
Captain  Thomas.  "In  daylight  or  on 
deck  it  looks  jes'  like  an  ordinary 
stun';  curios  thing,  ain't  it?" 

"Very,"  agreed  Prescott.  "What 
do  you  suppose  the  Eskimo  meant  by 
a  white  god  talking  in  it?" 

"Dunno.  Jus'  probably  one  of  his 
fool  superstitions;  like  its  falling 
from  the  sky  an'  all  that.  He  was  a 
queer  chap,  though,  that  Angakok, 
an'  a  long  ways  from  being  a  fool  him- 
self. Told  me  one  day  that  the  Nar- 
7vhd  would  never  'smell  ice'  again, 
but  would  carry  stuns;  blamed  if  he 
didn't  hit  it,  too — she's  sold  to  the 
Consolidated  Coal  Company." 

"One  side  of  this  thing  is  smoother 
than  the  other,"  commented  Prescott, 
nibbing  the  wonder-stone  reflectively 
against  his  cheek.  "I  wonder  what 
sort  of  a  man  it  was  that  shaped  it, 
and  what  he  did  it  for  ?" 

"More  like  'twas  a  woman,"  as- 
serted the  Captain  thoughtfully; 
"they  do  most  of  the  work  among  the 
Innuits,  an' —  Good  Lord!"  suddenly 
jumping  to  his  feet  and  eyeing  Pres- 
cott with  manifest  alarm,  "What's  the 
matter?  You're  white  as  a  sheet — 
mebbe  the  smell  of  the  ile  down  here 
has—?" 

With  an  tffort  the  reporter  pulled 
himself  together  and  answered  in  a 
tolerably  even  voice,  though  his  nerves 
were  tingling  and  twitching  in  a  decid- 
edly disagreeable  fashion. 

"I'm  all  right,"  he  said  hastily, 
**but  just  experienced  the  deuce  of  a 
queer  sensation — something  like  the 
shock  from  a  galvanic  battery.  I — I 
imagined  for  a  second — just  now,  as  I 


rubbed  this  thing  past  my  ear" — forc- 
ing a  wry  grin — "that  I  heard  some- 
thing inside  it — the  sound  of  a  human 
voice." 

The  captain  of  the  Narwhal  glanced 
uneasily  over  Prescott 's  shoulder  to- 
ward the  door  of  the  outer  cabin. 

"Mebbe  we'd  better  go  on  deck,"  he 
remarked  nervously.  "I  s'pose  the 
air's  mighty  bad  down  here  to  one  that 
ain't  used  to — " 

"Good  God !"  yelled  Prescott,  leap- 
ing to  his  feet,  "there  it  is  again — and 
it's  in  the  stone.  Fm  not  crazy,"  im- 
patiently, as  the  Captain  stepped  back 
and  clinched  his  massive  fist,  "I  can 
hear  words — words,  I  tell  you — inside 
this  ball;  they  sound  like  gibberish, 
but  they're  unmistakably  words." 

Mechanically,  shaking  like  a  man 
with  the  ague,  the  reporter  jerked 
forth  excitedly :  "Hjelp !  Hjelp  stack- 
ers Andree!  Fangen  hvid  Nordpolen 
ibland  trollen.  Sag  Peary  vagen  ai 
over — " 

With  a  wrathful  oath  Captain 
Thomas  snatched  the  stone  from  Pres- 
cott's  grasp.  "Get  out  of  my  ship!" 
he  roared  menacingly.  "Don't  take 
me  for  a  fool  because  I've  sailed  salt 
water  all  my  life;  I'm  not  the  kind  of 
man  it's  safe  to  play  jokes  on — I've  a 
good  mind  to  pitch  you  on  the  wharf 
and  jar  some  of  the  smartness  out  of 
you.  I  dunno  how  you  come  to  find 
out  I  could  understand  Swedish — 
mebbe  you  jes'  guessed  at  it — but  you 
don't  fool  me  for  a  minute.  You 
never  heard  no  such  nonsense  as  that 
in  old  Kudlah's  stun';  on  deck  with 
you  an'  quick — afore  I  get  to  doing  a 
little  joking  on  my  side." 

Prescott  held  up  his  hand. 

"Captain,"  he  said  solemnly,  "I  give 
you  my  word  of  honor  I  had  no  inten- 

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tion  of  joking  or  playing  tricks.  I 
haven't  the  least  idea  of  the  meaning 
of  what  I  repeated — if  it  has  a  mean- 
ing— and  I  don't  know  a  word  of 
Swedish ;  whatever  it  was  that  I  heard 
was  spoken  in  that  stonethere  as  clearly 
as  I  hear  you  speak;  put  the  thing  to 
your  own  ear  if  you  don't  believe  me." 

The  Captain  complied.  For  a  sec- 
ond he  stood  motionless,  an  incredu- 
lous smile  flickering  about  his  Hps. 
All  at  once,  with  a  yell  that  outdid 
Prescott's,  he  shouted :  **Hjelp !  Hjelp 
stackers  Andree" — his  voice  shrilled, 
broke — and  he  began  sawing  the  air 
wildly  with  his  disengaged  hand. 

Prescott  seized  the  Captain  by  the 
shoulder  and  shook  him  vehemently. 
**Why  don't  you  translate?"  he  de- 
manded. "If  you  understand  Swed- 
ish, and  that  jargon  is  Swedish,  tell 
me  what  it  means." 

"I  don't  know  what  it  means," 
gasped  the  Captain,  regarding  the 
wonder-stone  very  much  as  if  it  were 
an  infernal  machine  about  to  explode, 
''but  I'll  be  sunk  if  I  didn't  hear  some- 
body talking  Swedish  in  that  stun', 
same  you  say  you  did;  an'  I  reckon 
you  did,  right  enough,  for  I  heard  it." 

*'What  was  it?"  cried  Prescott,  his 
voice  high  and  throaty  with  excited 
impatience,  ''what  were  the  words? — 
can't  you  put  'em  into  English?" 

"Yes,"  faltered  the  Captain,  his 
voice  not  a  little  tinged  with  awe, 
"I  can;  but  don't  ask  me  to  explain 
'em,  for  it's  more'n  I'm  ekil  to.  They 
were  'Help!  Help  poor  Andree! 
Prisoner  among  the  North  Pole  sor- 
cerers.   Tell  Peary  the  way  is  over — " 

"Why,  why,"  stuttered  Prescott, 
breaking  in  on  the  Captain's  speech, 
as  remembrance  came  suddenly  home 
to  him,  "those  are  the  very  words  that 


Stub  Allen — he's  one  of  our  reporters 
on  the  Argus — ^used  in  the  last  chaptei 
of  his  story  that's  running  in  the  Sun- 
day supplement — 'The  Lost  Explorer.' 

"Come  on,"  he  shouted,  dragging 
Captain  Thomas  toward  the  door  of 
the  main  cabin.  "Don't  you  realize 
that  we've  stumbled  on  a  phenomenon 
that'll  electrify  the  world?  GooiJ 
God,  what  a  scoop  for  the  Argus! 
Just  you  wait  until  Crabtree  J.  Nich- 
ols hears  that  stone.  I  can  see  it  now, 
in  scareheads  as  big  as  a  house :  'Com- 
munication from  Andree.  Marconi 
eclipsed  by  a  marvellous  stone  found 
in  the  North—' " 

Captain  Thomas  staggered  in  Pres- 
cott's grip — threw  out  his  hands — ^and 
the  wonder-stone  squeezed  between  his 
fingers  and  fell  with  a  tinkling  crash 
on  to  the  cabin  floor,  rolling  over  the 
planking  in  tiny  bubbles. 

The  reporter  gave  a  howl  of  despair, 
lurched  forward,  slipped,  came  down 
into  his  chair  with  a  thud  that  clicked 
his  teeth  together,  and — opened  his 
eyes,  staring  .stupidly  at  the  round  and 
delighted  countenance  of  Stub  Allen. 

"Well,  if  you  can't  give  the  Seven 
Sleepers  cards  and  spades  and  then 
beat  'em !"  ejaculated  Allen. 

Prescott  rubbed  his  eyes,  looked  at 
the  clock,  looked  at  the  heading  of 
Forster's  article  anent  the  Eskimos 
lying  crumpled  in  his  lap,  and  there 
dawned  on  his  befogged  brain  a  vague 
recollection  of  sundry  spare  minutes 
spent  in  company  with  the  grinning 
individual  before  him  in  searching  the 
Swedish  dictionary  for  the  equivalent 
— in  Swedish —  of  "Help !  Help  poor 
Andree!''  to  the  betterment  of  "The 
Ix)st  Explorer." 

"Well,  rU  be  damned  1"  he  grunted 
disgustedly,  rising  stiffly  to  his  feet. 


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Whistler's  Father 

By  Gardner  C.  Teall 


A  PORTRAIT  of  George  Wash- 
ington Whistler  hangs  in  the 
hall  of  the  Springfield  Public 
Library.  Not  many  persons 
know  that  this  was  the  father  of 
James  Abbot  McNeill  Whistler,  the 
great  American  artist  who  died  at 
Chelsea,  England,  July  i8. 

George  W,  Whistler  was  born  in 
1800,  at  Fort  Wayne  in  the  old  Terri- 
tory of  Indiana.  Thence  his  mother 
took  him  to  the  south  shore  of  Lake 
Michigan,  where  his  father,  Lieuten- 
ant John  Whistler,  was  superintending 
the  construction  of  Fort  Dearborn. 
Young  George  Whistler  went  from 
place  to  place  with  his  father's  regi- 
ment, receiving  such  preliminary  ed- 
ucation as  his  mother,  an  accom- 
plished woman,  found  time  to  give 
him.  From  his  father  he  inherited 
those  military  inclinations  which  led  to 
his  entering  West  Point,  whence  he 
was  graduated  July  12,  181 9,  ranking 
twelfth  in  his  class.  Being  a  skilful 
flutist  brought  him  the  sobriquet  of 
"Pipes,"  and  although  not  the  most 
studious  of  cadets,  his  skill  in  drawing 
and  in  the  use  of  mathematical  instru- 
ments led  to  his  being  assigned  for 
topographical  duty  as  assistant  to 
Major  Abert  on  the  Survey  for  Mili- 
tar}'  Defences.  The  first  of  these  was 
Salem  Harbor,  Massachusetts,  where 
Lieutenant  Whistler  solved  the  prob- 
lem of  representing  the  shores  by  hor- 
izontal contour  lines  in  a  manner 
which  had  never  before  been  accom- 


plished. This  plan  is  the  one  now  in 
use  on  topographical  work  of  that 
description. 

In  1821  Lieutenant  Whistler  was 
ordered  back  to  West  Point  there  to 
act  as  assistant  professor  in  drawing. 
Here  he  married  the  daughter  of  Dr. 
Foster  Smith,  U.  S.  A.,  and  Deborah, 
daughter  of  Captain  Thomas  Delano. 
By  this  marriage  three  children  were 
bom:  Deborah,  who  married  Sir 
Francis  Seymour  Haden,  M.  D.,  of 
London,  George  Washington  Whist- 
ler, Jr.,  who  was  born  in  New  London, 
Connecticut,  and  Joseph  Swift  Whist- 
ler, bom  in  1825. 

In  1827  Mrs.  Whistler  died  in 
P»rooklyn,  New  York.  From  1822 
to  1826  Lieutenant  Whistler  was  en- 
gaged in  the  task  of  tracing  the 
boundary  in  the  terrible  wilderness 
which  stretched  from  Lake  Superior 
west  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods.  Here 
he  had  to  undergo  many  privations, 
and  suffered  intensely  from  cold, 
hunger,  and  all  the  hardships  to  which 
such  an  undertaking  would  subject 
him.  When  he  returned  within  the 
pale  of  civilization  he  found  the 
country  marvelling  at  the  inventions 
of  Stephenson  in  England.  The 
American  capitalists  were  quick  to 
appreciate  the  marvels  of  the  locomo- 
tive engine,  and  the  topic  of  railroad- 
ing became  one  of  absorbing  interest. 
Since  Lieutenant  Whistler's  fame  as 
an  engineer  was  becoming  wide- 
spread, it  is  not  strange  that  an  attempt 


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WHISTLER'S    FATHER 


should  have  been  made  to  secure  his 
services  by  companies  projecting 
various  railways.  As  the  government 
rewarded  his  services  but  meagrely, 
he  resigned  his  commission  in  1833, 
and  was  sent  by  a  syndicate  to  exam- 
ine the  railroad  system  of  England 
in  company  with  Jonathan  Mc- 
Knight,  William  Gibbs  McNeill,  and 
Ross  Winans.  When  he  returned 
his  services  were  secured  by  the  Bal- 
timore and  Ohio  and  the  Boston  and 
Albany  Railroads.  Thence  he  went 
to  Lowell,  Massachusetts,  where  he 
became  engineer  to  "The  Proprietors 
of  the  Locks  and  Canals  on  the  Merri- 
mack River."  This  was  the  corpora- 
tion which  converted  the  sloping  fields 
of  the  Merrimac  into  a  great  manu- 
facturing city,  foremost  in  its  textile 
industries.  Here  Lieutenant  Whistler 
availed  himself  of  every  opportunity 
to  visit  the  machine  shops  of  the 
Company,  and  his  ingenuity  evolved 
many  mechanical  devices  of  impor- 
tance. He  supervised  the  construc- 
tion of  a  remodelled  Stephenson  en- 
gine, and  fitted  it  to  the  peculiar  re- 
quirements of  an  .\merican  railroad. 
Lieutenant  Whistler's  second  wife 
was  Anna  Matilda,  the  daughter  of 
T)r.  Charles  Donald  McNeill,  of  Wil- 
mington, North  Carolina,  and  a  sister 
of  the  late  General  William  Gibbs 
McNeill,  who  was  then  one  of  Whist- 
ler's intimates  and  associates.  The 
McNeills  were  descended  from  the 
McNeills  of  Skye,  and  Dr.  McNeill 
was  born  and  educated  in  Edinburgh, 
serving  as  a  surgeon  in  the  Britisli 
army  in  the  West  Indies,  and  after- 
wards settling  in  North  Carolina. 
One  of  Mrs.  Whistler's  great-grand- 
fathers had  fought  and  had  won  dis- 


tinction in  the  battle  of  CuUoden,  and 
afterwards  journeyed  to  North  Caro- 
lina in  1746. 

The  Whistlers  lived  in  Lowell  until 
1837  in  a  modest  little  house  on 
Worthen  Street  still  standing.  Here 
William  Gibbs  McNeill  Whistler  was 
bom  in  1835,  ^md  a  year  later,  on  the 
night  of  August  i,  Jantes  Abbott 
McNeill  Whistler  first  saw  the  light 
of  day.  In  1837  the  Whistlers  re- 
moved to  Stonington,  Connecticut, 
where  Lieutenant  Whistler  was 
retained  in  the  ser\'ice  of  the  Stoning- 
ton Railroad.  Here  were  born  three 
sons  who  died  in  infancy,  and  who 
were  buried  in  the  family  plot  there. 
The  Whistlers  left  Stonington  in  1840 
for  Springfield,  Massachusetts,  Lieu- 
tenant Whistler  having  received  an 
appointment  as  Chief  Engineer  of  the 
Boston  and  Albany  Railroad. 

Unquestionably  Lieutenant  WTiist- 
ler  laid  down  the  lines  from  which 
the  modern  railroad  system  evolved, 
and  his  genius  commanded  the  admi- 
ration of  every  one  interested  in  con- 
stniction.  His  fame  spread  abroad, 
and  the  Emperor  Nicholas  I.  of 
Russia  made  him  a  flattering  oflfer  to 
undertake  the  construction  of  tlic 
contemplaterl  railroad  between  Mos- 
cow and  St.  Petersburg,  the  route  of 
which  had  not  even  received  a  pre- 
liminary survey.  Lieutenant  Whist- 
ler accepted  this  enormous  undertak- 
ing, and  went  to  Russia  with  his 
family  in  the  winter  of  1842,  taking 
up  his  residence  in  St.  Petersburg.  In 
a  letter  to  his  son,  which  came  to  the 
writer's  notice  years  after,  Lieutenant 
Whistler  described  his  presentation 
to  the  Emperor,  concluding: 

*The  Emperor  is  a  very  fine  looking 


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Courtesy  of  F.  Keppcl  &  Co. 


James  Abbot  McNeill  Whistle^^ 

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From  a  portrait^in  the  Springtield  Public  Library 

George  Washington  Whistler 


man,  very  trjuch  like  General  Scott, 
but  the  general  never  treated  me  with 
half  the  conisideration  that  the  Em- 
peror did. . .  .There  is  that  about  him 
that  enables  me  at  once  to  enter  upon 
a  conversation  and  tell  him  all  I  know 
upon  the  points  of  his  inquiries  with 
as  much  ease  as  I  could  have  talked 
with  any  private  gentleman.  I  verily 
believe  I  never  said  'y^"''  majesty' 
once.  I  described  to  him  the  whole 
of  the  road,  its  principal  difficulties 
and  how  they  might  be  overcome. 
He  seemed  much  interested,  often 
2)8 


questioned  me,  and  was  pleased  to 
say,  shaking  hands  with  me,  as  we 
parted,  'I  am  sure,  sir,  you  will  do 
it  riq:ht/  to  which  I  replied,  *You  are 
very  kind,  sir,  and  if  you  think  it  well 
done  when  it  is  done,  I  shall  be  proud 
of  your  approbation.'  " 

These  years  in  St.  Petersburg  were 
very  happy  ones.  It  was  there  that 
a  little  daughter  was  born.  The 
Whistlers  entertained  extensively,  and 
were  the  most  popular  foreigners  in 
Russia.  Lieutenant  Whistler's  salary 
amounted  to  some  $12,000  a  year,  but 


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MONDAMIN,    SPIRIT    OF   THE    CORN 


239 


there  were  additional  emoluments, 
and  the  Emperor  made  him  a  hand- 
some present  when  he  bestowed  upon 
him  the  cross  of  the  Order  of  St.  Anne. 
Not  only  was  Lieutenant  Whistler 
engfaged  upon  the  Moscow  and  St. 
Petersburg  Railroad,  but  he  managed 
to  find  time  to  plan  those  invulnerable 
fortifications  of  Cronstadt  which 
turned  away  the  British  in  1854. 

In  November  1848  Lieutenant 
Whistler  was  stricken  with  Asiatic 
cholera,  and  died  the  7th  of  April 
following.  Posthumous  honors  were 
shown  him,  and  the  Emperor  per- 
mitted  no  deviation   from   the  plans 


formed  by  Lieutenant  Whistler  for 
the  completion  of  the  Russian  Rail- 
road System. 

Lieutenant  Wliistler's  body  was 
carried  to  America  and  placed  in  St. 
Paul's  Church,  Boston,  whence  it  was 
removed  for  interment  at  Stonington, 
the  place  he  called  **home.'* 

Some  years  afterwards  the. Society 
of  American  Engineers  erected  a 
beautiful  red-sandstone  monolith  to 
Lieutenant  Whistlers  memory  in 
Twilight  Dell,  Greenwood  Cemetery, 
Brooklyn,  New  York.  It  stands  by 
the  grave  of  Mary  Swift  Whistler, 
his  first  wife. 


Mondamin,  the  Spirit  of  the  Indian  Corn 

By  Helen  W.  Davenport 
Photogfraphs  by  Louise  and  Helen  W.  E)avenport 


THERE  was  once  a  youth 
among  the  Indians  who 
was  approaching  man's  es- 
tate. His  tribe  was  poor,  but 
industrious,  and  his  parents  were  con- 
tented, in  spite  of  all  their  poverty 
and  need.  At  length  the  time  came 
for  the  youth  to  fast,  according  to  an 
ancient  custom,  in  order  that  he  might 
more  easily  hear  the  voice  of  the  Great 
Spirit,  which  was  to  guide  and  guard 
him  all  his  life. 

So  the  father  led  his  son  away  into 
a  quiet  ^x>t,  and  built  for  him  a  hut, 
v/here  he  could  live  until  the  ceremony 


was  over.  The  woods  were  full  of 
flowers  and  varied  plants,  and  the 
youth  began  to  know  and  love  them 
all,  as  he  wandered  about  among  the 
forest  paths.  And  he  thought  that 
he  would  ask  the  Great  Spirit,  who 
cared  so  well  for  every  little  plant 
and  flower,  to  give  more  food  to  his 
poor  Indians,  who  only  lived  by  hunt- 
ing and  fishing.  When  the  night 
came,  he  stayed  within  the  little  hut, 
and  watched  the  stars  that  shone  upon 
him,  thro'  the  open  doorway. 

At   sunset,   as   the  third   day   had 
nearly  passed,  a  brilliant  light  shone 


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240 


SPIRIT   OF   THE   CORN 


MoNDAMiN,  Spirit  of  the  Indian  Corn 

thro'  tlie  door,  upon  the  spot  where 
lay  the  Indian,  too  weak  from  want 
of  food  for  any  effort.  A  noble 
youth,  in  green  and  yellow  garments, 
with  waving  plumes  upon  his  head, 
stood  radiant  in  the  midst  of  the 
bright  light,  and  waited  for  a  geeting. 
As  the  Indian  boy  arose,  responsive 
to  his  call,  the  stranger  said:  "The 
Great  Spirit  of  the  Indians  has  lis- 
tened to  your  prayer  and  sends  me  to 
grant,  if  possible,  your  wise  request. 
Arise  now,  and  wrestle  with  me, 
for  only  by  my  overthrow  can  you 
succeed." 

Weary  and  weak,  the  Indian  youth 
obeyed,  altho'  his  first  struggHng  was 
in  vain.  But  as  his  courage  mounted 
higher  every  day,  his  strength  grew 
also,  and  at  the  last,  he  stood  victo- 
rious. Obeying,  then,  the  stranger's 
last  command,  he  tore  away  the  green 


and  yellow  garments,  and  buried  the 
body  carefully  beneath  the  ground 
and  left  it  there  for  many  long  spring 
days.  From  time  to  time,  he  visited 
the  grave  and  cared  for  it,  and  finally 
it  came  to  pass  that,  as  he  neared  the 
burial  ground;  lovely  green  plumes 
were  waving  on  the  field,  and  he  knew 
the  promise  of  the  Great  Spirit  was 
fulfilled.  Soon  there  arose  upon  the 
spot,  a  graceful  figure,  clad  in  green, 
with  plumes  upon  its  head,  and  bear- 
ing precious  fruit  within  its  arms. 
**It  was  Mondamin,  our  Indian  Corn, 
which,  so  the  legend  goes,  thus  came 
to  bless  the  earth  and  the  many  tribes 
that  occupy  it." 

Out  of  their  needs  and  their  expe- 
rience of  nature's  bounty,  the  North 
American  Indians  wove  a  Folk  Lore, 
to  which  the  foregoing  legend  of  the 
corn  belongs.     The  poet  Longfellow 


Indian  Corn  Plant 


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A  Picturesque  Cornfield 


has  immortalized  it,  in  his  Song  of 
Hiawatha,  where  it  will  live  on  altho' 
the  Indian  tribes  are  passing  now 
away.  Following  the  characteristics 
of  their  race,  they  made  their  own 
personification  of  the  Indian  corn  a 
youth,  or  warrior,  full  of  life  and 
strength,  and  not  a  goddess,  like  the 
Ceres  of  the  ancient  times. 

Among  the  diflFerent  tribes  were 
differing  legends,  and  far  back  in  the 
very  genesis  of  the  Indian  race,  when 
the  "First  Mother*'  came  to  join  the 
Father  of  all  the  red  men  of  the 
earth,  she  came  as  the  offspring  of  a 
beautiful  plant,  and  was  herself  gifted 
with  every  virtue.  As  the  years  of 
their  lives  went  on,  the  tribes  in- 
creased, and  poverty  and  famine  came 
to  their  children  and  grandchildren. 
Then  the  heart  of  the  'Tirst  Mother" 


grew  heavy,  and  she  wandered  discon- 
solate thro'  the  woods  and  fields,  and 
nothing  could  console  her.  At  last, 
with  tears  and  prayers,  she  besought 
her  husband,  the  **First  Father,"  to 
slay  her,  and  scatter  her  body  over 
the  fields,  and  then  w^ait  patiently  for 
the  result.  Couufielled  by  the  Great 
Spirit,  whom  Indians  obey,  the  Fa- 
ther did  as  she  desired,  and  scattered 
the  broken  pieces  of  her  body  on  the 
ground.  Days  went  and  came,  and 
nothing  appeared,  but  at  last  the 
ground  was  covered  with  fresh  green 
blades,  like  grass,  which  grew  rapidly 
into  tall  and  beautiful  plants,  bearing 
the  rich  fruit  of  Indian  corn.  Then  the 
tribes  knew  that  this  had  been  done 
by  the  '*  First  Mother,"  who  gave 
her  life  and  body  to  provide  nourish- 
ment for  her  suffering  children. 

241 


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Guardian  of  the  Cornfield 


When  the  first  white  men  landed 
on  the  New  England  shore,  they  had 
to  struggle  against  both  hunger  and 
disease,  and  the  friendly  Indians  sold 
them  measures  of  corn,  and  told  them 
hovv  to  guard  the  seed  and  plant  it,  on 
the  following  year.  Without  this 
knowledge  of  the  Indian  corn,  and 
the  supplies  sold  them  by  the  Indians, 
the  Pilgrim  Colony,  might  well  have 


perished,  so  rough  and  unyielding 
was  the  soil  and  climate  which  it  had 
to  encounter.  In  1620  the  Pilgrims 
found  quite  large  corn  plantings  near* 
Plymouth,  and  Columbus  discovered 
maize  on  the  West  Indies  in  the  early 
part  of  the  fifteenth  century.  A  French 
writer,  describing  the  villages  of  the 
Iroquois,  depicts  the  tribe  as  versed 
in  the  rudiments  of  agriculture,  and 


Full  Corn  in  the  Ear 


242 


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I 

tn 

VI 

H 


243 

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When  Golden  Pumpkins  Gleam  Among  the  Fields  of  Corn 


speaks  of  finding  in  four  of  the  vil- 
lages, twelve  hundred  thousand 
bushels  of  corn.  Corn-grinding  slabs 
have  been  taken  from  the  ruins  of 
Indian  towns  in  the  Petrified  Forests 
of  Arizona,  and  in  the  graves  were 
bowls  and  vases,  containing  traces  of 
the  Indian  corn. 

The  maize,  more  commonly  known 
as  corn  in  America,  was  carried  to 
Spain,  in  the  Old  World,  by  Christo- 
pher Columbus,  and  from  there  its 
cultivation  spread  throughout  the 
greater  part  of  Europe,  and  as  far  as 
Egypt  and  China.  Its  absolute  origin 
is  not  determined,  but  it  is  probably 
indigenous  to  American  soil,  as 
kernels  of  corn  have  been  discovered 
in  the  burial  mounds  of  Peru,  and  the 
plant  has  been  seen  growing  wild  in 
Paraguay. 

The   botanical   name   accepted   for 

244 


the  Indian  corn  is  Zea-Mays,  and 
comes  from  words  which  mean  to 
live,  and  bread,  or  the  staff  of  life. 
,  Altho'  in  England  the  name  of  corn 
is  applied  to  rye  and  wheat  and  other 
bread-stuffs,  in  America  it  is  gener- 
ally used  to  designate  the  maize,  and 
the  descriptive  adjective,  Indian,  is 
added  or  not,  according  to  con- 
venience. 

In  the  Indian  legends  of  the  Mani- 
tou,  the  maize  was  always  the  special 
food  of  the  "Lesser  Spirits,"  who 
created  the  earth.  When  the  spirits 
fled  back  to  the  gates  of  Heaven,  after 
destroying  their  creation,  because  of 
man's  ingratitude,  the  seeds  of  the 
Indian  corn  were  dropped  to  earth, 
and  covered  by  the  waters  spreading 
over  it. 

The  seeds  took  root,  and  flourished 
in  the  new  world,  which  sprang  from 


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Making  a  Shock  of  Corn 


out  the  old,  and  to-day  the  Indian 
corn  grows  even^where  in  the  West, 
where 

"Upon  a  hundred  thousand  plains 
Its  banners  rustle  in  the  breeze." 

In  all  parts  of  the  country,  the  Ind- 
ian com  is  largely  cultivated  as  fod- 
der for  cattle,  and  the  sweet  corn, 
roasted,  is  a  favorite  article  of  food 
for  the  people.  There  are  also  many 
other  products  of  maize,  such  as 
hulled-corn,  popped  corn,  hominy, 
Indian  meal  and  corn-starch,  so  that 
it  is  now  as  much  the  staff  of  life  to 
the  White  man,  as  it  was  years  ago 
to  the  poor  Indian,  who  wrestled  and 
threw  down  "Mondamin,  the  spirit  of 
the  Indian  Corn." 

On  one  of  the  small  New  England 
farms  it  is  perhaps  easier  to  observe 
the  growth  of  the  corn,  and  to  watch 
its  rapid  development,  from  seed-time 
to  harvest,  than  in  the  West,  where 
everything  is   on   so   large    a    scale 


The  New  England  farmer  often  cuts 
his  corn  by  hand.,  as  any  machine 
would  injure  the  pumpkin  vines, 
which  grow  all  thro'  the  corn-fields. 
The  stalks  are  cut  with  a  sickle  and 
thrown  down,  and  later,  bound  to- 
gether in  small  bundles  and  fastened 
by  the  blue  joint  grass,  as  it  is  called. 
This  grass  is  used  instead  of  string, 
because  it  shrinks  as  docs  the  corn, 
when  it  dries,  and  so  holds  the  stalks 
firmly  together.  These  bundles  then 
are  heaped  around  a  structure,  called 
a  corn-horse,  until  a  good-sized 
shock  is  formed,  and  left  to  dry  upon 
the  field. 

The  corn  field  is  always  pictur- 
esque, from  the  time  of  planting, 
when  some  grotesque  figure,  or  an 
old,  dead  bird,  stands  guard  upon  the 
field  to  scare  "the  robber  crows," 
until  the  autumn  days,  when  golden 
pumpkins   gleam   among   the   shocks. 

There  are  merry  huskings  still,  in 

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SPIRIT    OF   THE   CORN 


the  small  New  England  towns,  when 

•*  .  .  .  In    the    golden    weather  the   maize 
was  husked,  and  the  maidens 
Blushed  at  each  blood-red  ear,  for  that 

betokened  a  lover, 
Hut  at  the  crooked  laughed,  and  called 
it  a  thief  in  the  cornfield." 

And  when  the  harvest  is  over,  and 
the  November  evenings  come,  the 
dried  pop-corn  is  roasted,  over  the 
open  fire,  and  turned  into  snow-white 
morsels,  and  eaten  with  sugar  or  salt. 

The  many  varieties  of  corn  are  im- 
proved from  season  to  season,  and  of 
seed-corn  thousands  of  bushels  are 
used,  and  many  changes  are  made  in 
methods    of    planting    and    reaping. 


But  the  old,  primitive  way  of  bury- 
ing the  seed  in  the  earth,  and  of  pa- 
tiently caring  and  waiting,  until  the 
green  blades  appeared,  underlies  the 
most  modern  inventions.  Of  all  the 
workings  of  Nature,  none  is  more 
sure  and  unchanging,  than  the  burial 
and  the  resurrection  of  the  seed,  and 
it  has  become  symbolic  of  all  life. 
Among  those  simple  children  of  Nat- 
ure, who  were  the  first  in  this  countr>' 
to  plant  and  harvest  the  maize,  there 
is  an  "Old  Man's  Parable": 

"/\  man  is  like  a'  grain  of  corn — 
bury  him  and  he  moulds;  yet  his 
heart  lives  and  springs  up  in  the 
breath  of  life,  the  Soul,  to  make  him 
as  he  was,  so  again." 


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A  New  Light  for  the  World 

Radium  Light  and  Heat  Rays,  Which  May  Transform  Our 
Methods  of  Life  and  Manufacturing 

By  George  Ethelbert  Walsh 


RADIUM,  a  metal  of  the  cal- 
cium, strontium  and  barium 
group,  is  a  chemical  curiosi- 
ty to-day,  which  excites 
more  interest  in  the  world  of  science 
than  the  discovery  of  anything 
since  the  days  of  Faraday.  Not 
even  the  utilization  of  the  Hertzian 
waves  for  wireless  telegraphy  pur- 
poses by  Marconi,  nor  the  discovery 
and  emplo)rment  of  the  X-rays  for 
surgical  operations,  nor  the  invention 
of  the  Crooke's  tube  nor  the  finding 
of  the  Becquerel  rays,  created  so 
much  interest  and  discussion  among 
the  world's  scientists  as  the  discovery 
of  radium  by  Professor  and  Mme. 
Curie,  two  patient,  painstaking  labo- 
ratory workers  in  Paris. 

The  reasons  for  this  remarkable 
excitement  over  a  piece  of  metal  of 
rather  insignificant  aspect,  other 
than  the  emission  of  light  reflected 


Edxtok's  Notb>— In  connectiocr  with  this  interesting 
andvahiable  article  by  Mr.  George  £.  Walsh,  it  is  interest- 
ing to  note  that  the  newspapers  have  recently  reported  a 
lemaricable  experiment  in  caring  the  blind  by  the  use  of 


A  Toong  girl  of  New  York  now  eleven  years  of 
age^  who  bao  been  totally  blind  since  ^e  was  three,  was 
sabjected  to  the  treatment,  and  while  the  sieht  was  not  at 
once  fully  restored*  in  three  days  she  could  distinguish 
objects  and  diacem  lights.  The  radium  used  in  the  experi- 
ment was  of  looo,  ^ooo  and  7000  radioactivity.  Sc  ven  tubes 
of  nkBam,  rangmg  from  75  to  7000  radioactivity,  were 
placed  in  scTcraT narrow  chocolate  boxes  and  held  against 
^  forehead,  base  of  the  brain  and  temples  of  the  child. 
Then  the  X^ray  was  used  with  the  radium  and  the  child  had 
a  momentary  sensation  of  light.  Almost  au  hour  later,  on 
her  way  home,  the  child  saw  a  car  pass  her  which  looked 
Uke  a  shadow.  Since  then  she  has  been  improving  in  sight 
and  duart  aeems  a  possibility  of  complete  recovery. 


from  it,  are  somewhat  complicated. 
In  the  world  of  science  the  discovery 
promises  to  upset  all  preconceived 
notions  regarding  the  theory  of 
atoms,  molecules  and  space  particles. 
In  the  industrial  world  it  bids  fair  to 
revolutionize  our  methods  of  lighting 
and  heating  our  homes,  factories  and 
mills. 

Radium  is  a  product  of  the  chemi- 
cal laboratory,  and  to-day  it  is  esti- 
mated to  be  worth  $5,000,000  per 
pound.  There  is  hardly  a  pound  of 
it  in  existence  to-day  in  all  the  world, 
and  the  few  pieces  are  as  jealously 
guarded  as  though  they  were  dia- 
monds. But  in  probably  hundreds  of 
laboratories  throughout  the  world 
scientists  and  industrial  chemists  are 
laboring  hard  to  manufacture  radium 
after  some  new  process  which  will  en- 
able them  to  realize  a  fortune  and  a 
world-wide  reputation. 

Radium  was  extracted  from  pitch- 
blende by  Professor  and  Mme.  Curie 
after  a  long  series  of  experiments, 
and  the  price  which  they  placed  on 
their  product,  considering  the  enor- 
mous difficulties  and  expense  of  ex- 
tracting it,  was  five  million  dollars  a 
pound.  In  the  pitchblende  there  was 
about  80  per  cent  of  uranium,  a  com- 
bination which  is  very  difficult  to  find. 


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248 


A   NEW   LIGHT 


In  order  to  secure  one  pound  of  ra- 
dium from  this  combination  by  the 
slowest  and  most  costly  processes 
some  three  thousand  tons  of  pitch- 
blende and  uranium  would  have  to  be 
handled.  But  pitchblende,  with  such 
a  large  percentage  of  uranium,  is 
never  found  free  from  other  ores  and 
metals.  Usually  iron,  copper,  bari- 
um, and  other  materials  are  mixed 
with  the  pitchblende  and  uranium, 
making  it  necessary,  to  extract  a 
pound  of  radium,  to  handle  some 
five  thousand  tons  of  mixed  ores. 

The  properties  of  radium  are  the 
most  peculiar  of  any  metal  in  the 
world^  They  are  chiefly  noticeable 
in  the  emission  of  strong  light  and 
heat  rays.  A  minute  particle  of  ra- 
dium sends  forth  torrents  of  heat  and 
light  rays,  which  seem  in  no  appreci- 
able way  to  affect  the  substance  itself. 
It  does  not  diminish  in  size  or  activ- 
ity, but  continues  to  emit  the  rays  of 
light  and  heat  uniformly.  For  cen- 
turies radium  has  thus  been  parting 
with  its  heat  and  light,  and  its  stored- 
iip,  concentrated  energy  appears  to 
have  lessened  to  only  a  very  small  de- 
gree. In  this  substance  we  have  a 
continuous,  powerful  stove,  lamp,  or 
power  plant,  which  never  ceases  to 
work. 

A  very  small  piece  of  raditun  is 
sufficient  to  light  a  room  or  to  exert 
energy  through  heat.  Rutherford  es- 
timates that  one  gramme  of  radium 
possesses  heat  enough  to  raise  500 
tons  a  mile  high,  or  an  ounce  of  it 
should  suffice  to  drive  a  50-horse 
power  motor  around  the  world  at 
thirty  miles  an  hour. 

A  small  fraction  of  an  ounce  of 
radium  would  light  half  a  dozen 
rooms  better  than  the  modem  elec- 


tric light;  but  the  most  remaTkablc 
phenomena  of  this  new  lighting  appa- 
ratus is  that  the  lamp  would  never 
need  renewing  or  fixing.  The  ra- 
dium light  would  continue  to  shine 
with  undiminished  lustre  for  the  bal- 
ance of  the  present,  and  probably 
through  the  next,  century.  Accord- 
ing to  Sir  William  Crookes  a  g^ain 
of  radium  is  belching  forth  between 
ten  and  a  hundred  million  projectiles 
of  light  and  heat  every  second. 

Radium  is  a  chemical  mystery  to- 
day, but  like  most  other  discoveries 
ii  has  a  history  dating  back  to  nti- 
merous     other     experiments    which 
gradually  led  up  to  its  brilliant  dis- 
covery.     There    were    various    co- 
workers in  the  field  with  Professor 
and  Mme.  Curie,  and  their  work  and 
experiments  helped  to  unfold  the  final 
mystery  of  the  interesting  series.     It 
was  known  a  long  time  ago  that  cer- 
tain metals  and  materials  had  peculiar 
radiant  properties.    A  g^oup  of  radio- 
active   metals    was    classified,    chief 
among  them  being  uranium.     The 
peculiar    properties    of    these    sub- 
stances were  their  tendency  to  seixJ 
forth  heat  and  light  rays  under  cer- 
tain conditions.    In  the  vacuum  tube 
it  was   found   that   certain   elements 
presented   luminosity.      It   was   pre- 
dicted by  Sir  William  Crookes  nearly 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  that  frag- 
ments   of    matter    smaller  than  the 
atoms  of  liquid  or  gas  were  thrown 
off  by  this  group  of  metals  in  the 
vacuum  tube. 

Working  on  this  theory  Roentgen 
obtained  the  rays  of  light  which  have 
made  his  name  famous,  and  later 
Becquerel  rays  were  obtained  from 
the  salts  of  uranium.  Like  the 
Roentgen  or   X-rays,  the  light  ema- 


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nations  from  the  salts  of  uranium  had 
the  power  to  penetrate  opaque  sub- 
stances. These  new  light  rays  were 
powerful  enough  to  effect  a  photo- 
graphic plate  in  a  dark  room,  or  to 
discharge  an  electrometer  at  a  dis- 
tance. 

The  radioactivity  of  bodies  accom- 
panying uranium  was  known  before 
Prof,  and  Mme.  Curie  carried  out 
their  brilliant  researches  to  a  success- 
ful issue,  and  produced  radium  both 
in  the  form  of  salts  and  a  metal.  The 
g^eat  scientific  discussion  aroused  by 
the  discovery  of  radium  is  whether 
matter  exists  in  an  ultra-gaseous 
state,  and  whether  the  atom  after  all 
is  the  smallest  particle  of  matter  in 
the  universe.  According  to  Sir  Wil- 
liam Crookes  the  discovery  of  radium 
harmonizes  the  new  theory  of  the  di- 
visibility of  the  atom  and  the  exist- 
ence of  the  electrical  atom  or  elec- 
trons. According  to  this  theory 
atoms  of  electricity  or  electrons  are 
floating  intangibly,  like  helium,  in  the 
sun,  and  they  reach  the  earth  in 
various  conditions  and  masses. 

While  studying  the  radiations  of 
uranium,  the  Curies  found  a  piece 
which  displayed  unusual  activity,  and 
they  decided  that  this  was  due  to 
some  foreign  substance  which  had 
more  powerful  radioactivity  than  the 
uranium.  Careful  chemical  experi- 
ments enabled  them  to  isolate  this 
substance,  which  turned  out  to  be  a 
new  material,  which  they  named  po- 
lonium after  their  native  latid  of  Po- 
land. Still  further  pursuing  their 
chemical  researches  and  experiments 
they  succeeded  in  isolating  another 
metal  which  they  called  radium. 

The  rays  thrown  off  by  radium  are 
not   thoroughly   understood    to-day. 


They  are  similar  to  ordinary  light  in 
some  respects,  but  are  more  like  the 
Roentgen  rays.  They  are  practically 
without  weight,  and  consequently 
many  years  would  have  to  elapse  be- 
fore the  weight  of  the  radium  would 
show  any  appreciable  reduction. 
When  separated  from  all  other  mate- 
rials radium  has  the  power  to  raise 
and  maintain  a  temperature  of  1.5  de- 
grees Centigrade  above  all  it?  sur- 
roundings. This  heat  is  possible  of 
maintenance  for  a  century  or  two. 
If  the  hand  is  held  near  radium  for 
a  few  hours  a  skin  wound  or  burn  is 
produced,  which  it  has  been  found 
difficult  to  heal.  ' 

Technically  three  kinds  of  rays  or 
emanations  are  made  from  radium, 
one  of  which  is  the  same  as  the  ca- 
thode stream  of  the  X-ray  light  or 
atoms  of  electricity  or  electrons  pro- 
jected into  space  apart  from  gross 
matter.  These  electrons  are  continu- 
ally liberated  from  radium,  and  they 
will  penetrate  lead  or  several  inches 
of  wood  or  aluminum.  They  are 
shot  from  radium  about  one-tenth  as 
fast  as  light  travels.  They  are  gradu- 
ally obstructed  by  air  atoms,  and  lose 
their  power  and  force,  but  thereafter 
they  are  disseminated  in  space  some- 
what similar  to  a  fog  or  mist.  In 
time  they  produce  a  sort  of  phos- 
phorescence. 

The  second  kind  of  emanations 
from  radium  are  much  greater  in 
mass  than  the  electrons,  atid  they  are 
called  the  positive  ions  which  can- 
not be  deflected  by  a  magnet,  as  the 
electrons  can.  They  move  with  the 
speed  of  light,  but  they  are  more 
quickly  overcome  by  the  air  particles, 
and  lose  their  force.  They  render  air 
as  a  conductor,  but  are  incapable  of 


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A   NEW   LIGHT 


passing    through    material    obstruc- 
tions. 

The  third  kind  of  emanations  are 
very  penetrating  rays,  which  are  not 
alfected  by  the  magnet,  and  are  de- 
scribed as  ether  waves.  They  are 
practically  Roentgen  rays,  and  are 
produced  as  secondary  phenomena 
by  the  electrons  striking  some  solid 
body.  The  sudden  arrest  of  the  first 
class  of  rays  in  striking  lead  or  wood 
causes  the  third  class  of  emanations 
to  produce  a  series  of  pulsations  or 
explosive  ether-waves.  All  three  of 
these  emanations  appear  simultane- 
ously and  continuously,  and  their  di- 
vision in  separate  classes  is  merely  a 
technical  matter  of  interest  only  to 
the  scientific  world. 

Wonderful  revolutionizing  results 
have  been  claimed  for  radium,  some 
of  which,  after  all,  must  be  limited  to 
the  visions  of  dreamers;  but  enough 
actual  results  are  obtained  to  satisfy 
the  most  radical  hopes  of  those  who 
have  worked  to  extend  the  field  of 
our  knowledge  concerning  radioactive 
bodies  of  the  universe.  What  is  the 
power  which  is  locked  up  in  these 
strange  materials?  Whence  does  it 
come  from,  and  whither  does  it  go? 
Are  we  unveiling  the  mystery  of  ail 
light,  heat,  energy — life  itself?  Per- 
petual motion  machines  were  the 
dream  of  the  ancients,  and  modem 
science  has  condemned  such  dreams 
as  impossible  of  fulfilment;  but  with 
a  piece  of  radium  for  the  motive 
power  who  shall  say  that  the  dream 
of  the  ancients  has  not  in  a  measure 
been  realized?  So  far  as  scientific 
measurements  and  tests  are  con- 
cerned the  loss  in  radium  in  throwing 
out  its  millions  of  heat  and  light  rays 
is  inconceivable. 


Every  important  scientific  discov- 
ery of  to-day  is  measured  from  two 
distinct  standpoints.  One  has  to  do 
with  its  bearing  upon  pure  science, 
with  no  utilitarian  purpose  in  view, 
and  the  other  is  more  specifically  a 
test  of  its  practical  use.  The  discov- 
ery of  radium  has  momentously  sim- 
plified many  purdy  scientific  prob- 
lems, and  it  has  agitated  scientific 
investigators  to  such  an  extent  that 
it  is  epochal  in  its  effects.  But  the 
test  of  its  utility  is  still  to  be  made. 
There  is  no  question  about  its  value 
as  a  remarkable  agent  for  yielding 
light  and  heat  if  it  can  be  recovered 
in  sufficient  quantities  from  the 
earthy  materials  in  which  it  is  in- 
volved to  make  its  use  practical ;  but, 
like  the  diamonds  made  in  the  elec- 
tric furnace,  it  may  prove  too  elusive 
and  costly  to  reward  industrial  chem- 
ists in  their  efforts  to  make  it  of 
value  to  the  world  of  every-day 
science. 

The  demand  for  radium  must  al- 
ways be  far  in  excess  of  the  supply, 
and  the  new  industry  of  extracting 
radium  from  the  ores  is  one  that  will 
appeal  with  special  force  to  the  naanu- 
facturing  chemist.  The  first  applica- 
tion of  radium  outside  of  the  purely 
experimental  laboratories  will  be  in 
the  field  of  medicine  and  surgery.  As 
a  substitute  for  the  X-ray  machine  it 
will  immediately  be  in  demand,  for 
radium  gives  a  far  more  uniform  sup- 
ply of  rays  than  the  X-ray  machine, 
and  they  prove  even  far  more  pene- 
trating. The  convenience  for  hand- 
ling the  radium  for  surgical  purposes 
will  also  prove  a  great  advantage  in 
its  favor.  Instead  of  the  large, 
clumsy  X-ray  focus  tube,  a  gla'ss  tube 
smaller  than  a  toothpick,  holding   a 


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251 


tenth  of  a  grain  of  radium,  can  be  in- 
serted into  any  small  orifice  of  the 
body,  such  as  the  nose,  mouth  or 
ears,  and  better  results  be  obtained 
than  with  the  X-ray  outfit.  Cancer  in 
the  nose  and  ear  has  already  been 
treated  and  cured  with  radium, 
which  persistently  resisted  all  treat- 
ments with  the  X-rays. 

The  successful  treatment  of  other 
diseases  with  radium  is  possible. 
Even  the  blind  can  see  this  light. 
That  is,  a  piece  of  it  inclosed  in  a  box 
can  be  brought  into  a  room,  and  if 
placed  near  the  forehead  of  a  totally 
blind  person  he  experiences  a  flash 
of  light  on  the  retina  of  the  eye.  As 
a  germicidal  it  is  a  powerful  factor 
in  disease  treatments,  for  no  small  in- 
sects, germs,  or  animals  can  live  long 
when  exposed  directly  to  its  rays. 

The  practical  question  of  using  ra- 
dium as  an  illuminant  seems  to 
depend  entirely  upon  the  possibility 
of  recovering  it  in  sufficiently  large 
quantities.  According  to  Sir  William 
Crookes  a  single  atom  projected  by 
radium,  when  it  strikes  a  piece  of 
zinc  sulphide,  gives  light  enough  to 
attract  the  eye,  and  a  single  grain  of 
this  substance  is  continuously  belch- 
ing forth  ten  to  a  hundred  million 
projectiles  every  second.  The  light  ob- 
tained from  a  grain  would  thus  form 
an  illuminant  equal  to  several  candle 
power.  At  present  a  single  gramme 
of  radium  costs  from  $600  to  $1,200, 
according  to  whether  any  one  has 
much  of  the  commodity  to  sell;  but 
even  at  this  extraordinary  price  it 
would  probably  prove  in  the  end  a 
cheap  illuminant.  The  gramme 
would  be  sealed  in  a  glass  tube,  and 
the  light  would  be  given  forth  prac- 
tically forever.    There  would  be  no 


renewing,  no  repairing,  no  trimming, 
no  changing.  The  light  would  be  as 
constant  and  changeless  as  the  sun. 
No  known  power  could  increase  its 
rays  the  slightest,  nor  anything  di- 
minish them  the  smallest  fraction. 

Mines  of  pitchblende,  uranium, 
iron,  copper,  polonium;  and  even  ra- 
dium in  combination,  are  distributed 
in  different  parts  of  this  country,  and 
there  are  several  companies  engaged 
in  experimenting  with  the  ore  for  the 
purpose  of  manufacturing  radium.  In 
Utah  in  particular  there  is  a  mine 
which  is  filled  with  ore  that  appears 
to  possess  the  required  combination 
of  minerals  for  successful  manufac- 
ture of  radium.  In  order  to  extract 
the  uranium  from  the  combination, 
the  ore  has  to  be  finely  pulverized 
and  chemically  treated  by  several 
processes  to  separate  the  different 
metals.  So  subtle  and  elusive  is  the 
radium  that  after  the  most  exacting 
and  expensive  processes  to  secure  it 
from  its  mixture  with  other  minerals 
it  suddenly  disappears — gets  lost,  as 
it  were,  in  the  process,  and  is  washed 
oflF  with  the  sand  or  iron  ore.  Where 
its  presence  has  been  definitely 
known,  it  has  disappeared  as  myste- 
riously as  if  wafted  away  by  a  magic 
wand.  The  uncertainty  of  securing 
it  in  any  experiment  always  tends  to 
heighten  the  cost  and  worry  of  manu- 
facturing it. 

Several  methods  have  been  tried  to 
secure  radium  without  risking  loss 
through  some  subtle  action  of  tRe 
substance  at  any  process  of  the  work. 
Constant  watchfulness  and  patience, 
howxver,  are  required.  The  electro- 
scope indicates  the  presence  of  radio- 
active bodies  in  the  blend,  but  it  is 
not   always   able   to   determine  just 


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when  it  will  suddenly  slip  away  and 
pass  into  the  waste  material. 

In  manufacturing  radium  a  tedious 
process  of  gathering  the  crude  mix- 
ture of  ore,  washing,  screening,  and 
pulverizing  it,  must  be  first  at- 
tempted, and  then  by  chemical  reduc- 
tion one  impurity  after  another  is 
eliminated.  Gradually  from  tons  of 
ore  the  reduction  leaves  a  small  pow- 
der or  sanid  of  scarcely  ten  pounds 
weight.  This  residue  contains  vari- 
ous combinations  of  radioactive 
bodies,  such  as  barium  chloride,  po- 
lonium, crude  radium-barium,  and 
other  compounds.  All  of  these  are 
valuable  materials,  worth  from  a  few 
cents  an  ounce  up  to  several  dollars. 
Even  radium-barium  chloride  when 
tested  under  the  electroscope  shows 
luminosity  of  great  power.  But  the 
extraction  of  pure  radium  salts  is  a 
process  that  may  give  no  success 
until  after  many  futile  efforts. 

At  Niagara,  where  a  wonderful 
group  of  electrochemical  industries 
have  been  built  up  within  the  past 
decade  through  the  utilization  of  the 
powerful  current  generated  by  the 
Falls,  experimental  chemists  are  now 
busy  at  work  in  trying  to  make  ra- 
dium by  new  processes.  The  manu- 
facture of  barium  and  barium  salts  is 
a  recognized  industry  there,  and  for 
a  couple  of  years  these  products  have 
been  obtained  from  the  crude  ore  by 
electrical  means,  so  that  the  price  to- 
day is  one-tenth  of  what  prevailed 
five  years  ago.  From  the  present  meth- 
ods it  seems  as  if  any  substance  for 
which  several  hundred  tons  of  ore 
must  be  worked  up  chemically  to  ex- 
tract a  single  ounce  could  never  be 
made  very  useful ;  but  more  wonder- 
ful things  have  been  produced  by  the 


electric  furnace,  and  radium  may  yet 
come  from  the  crucible  as  a  sub- 
stance that  all  can  use. 

In  that  event  our  ordinary  condi- 
tions of  living  will  be  completely 
revolutionized.  Our  nights  may  then 
be  converted  into  eternal  day.  Small 
suns  may  be  placed  above  our  city 
roofs  to  shine  down  continuously  for 
centuries  to  come,  which  neither 
storm,  wind,  nor  ice  can  affect  or  di- 
minish. The  light  which  now  makes 
the  sun  such  a  powerful  life-giver  and 
germicide  will  then  be  within  our 
daily  reach,  and  even  clouds  and 
smoke  will  have  less  influence  in  de- 
pressing our  spirits  during  the  long^ 
wintry  days. 

Besides  this  we  may  use  radium  to 
generate  power  for  working  our  mills 
and  factories,  for  operating  our 
street  cars  and  vehicles,  and  for  run- 
ning scores  of  small  machines  in  our 
homes.  This  power  will  be  clean, 
convenient,  and  perpetual.  There 
will  be  no  renewing  and  repairing.  It 
will  be  as  eternal  and  uniform  as  the 
sun  itself.  To  be  exact,  if  a  square 
centimetre  of  surface  were  covered 
with  pure  radium,  according  to  Pro- 
fessor J.  J.  Thomson,  it  would  only 
lose  in  weight  one-thousandth  of  a 
milligramme  in  a  thousand  years. 

The  pitchblende  which  contains  the 
largest  per  cent  of  radioactive  mate- 
rial thus  far  discovered  was  found  in 
Bohemia ;  but  nearly  as  good  ore  has 
been  more  recently  discovered  in 
small  pockets  in  Saxony,  and  a  dis- 
tinct vein  in  Cornwall,  England. 
Professor  Curie  has  also  obtained  ex- 
cellent radioactive  pitchblende  from 
mines  in  Colorado,  and  the  ore  mined 
here  yielded  twenty  per  cent  of  the 
compound  materfals.  It  was  found  in 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


253 


small  quantities  and  mixed  with  other 
materials.  The  best  pitchblende,  or 
uramnite,  is  a  compound  oxide,  con- 
taining eighty-one  and  one-half  per 
cent  of  pure  uranium,  four  per  cent 
of  lead,  and  with  traces  of  oxygen 
and  water,  or  sometimes  magnesia, 
manganese  or  silicon.  It  is  known 
now  that  this  form  of  pitchblende  is 
quite  widely  distributed  in  various 
mines  in  this  country ;  but  its  quality 
ranges  from  40  to  something  like 
7,000  of  radioactivity. 

The    question    of   prospecting    for 


mines  of  pitchblende,  rich  in  radio- 
active materials,  has  suddenly  be- 
come an  important  new  feature  of 
our  mining  life,  and  every  effort  is 
being  made  to  test  the  ore  from  all 
parts  of  the  country.  It  may  be  that 
mines  will  be  discovered  which  will 
make  the  gold  and  diamond  mines  of 
the  world  insignificant  in  valuation  in 
comparison,  for  radium  is  to-day 
about  the  most  expensive  material  in 
the  world.  Not  even  our  precious 
stones  can  excel  it  in  monetary  value 
the  world  over. 


Conductor  Pat  Francis* 

How  the  Yellowstone  Excursion  Escaped  Its  Pursuer 

By  Frank  H.  Spearman 


THERE  had  been  some  talk 
at  headquarters  about  our 
conductors.      It    was    inti- 
mated and  freely  from  the 
auditing  department  that  the  men  of 
the  punch   were  not   dividing  fairly 
with  the  company. 

To  this  effect  the  general  manager 
wrote  Bucks,  superintendent  of  the 
mountain  division.  Bucks  filed  the 
letter  away  in  the  stove.  Another 
communication  fared  no  better.  But 
there  were  some  new  people  at  head- 
quarters; they  had  a  record  to  make, 
and  they  proposed  to  write  part  of  it 
on  our  backs.  Bucks  got  another  let- 
ter; he  threw  it  in  the  stove. 

Pat  Barlie  often  and  often  said  he 


i  *  (CopTiight,  1902,  by  Frank  U.  Spearman.) 


recommended  no  man  to  drink  whis- 
key; he  only  recommended  the 
whiskey.  I  recommend  no  rising 
railroad  man  to  bum  the  third  letter 
on  the  same  subject  from  his  general 
manager;  I  merely  recommend 
Bucks.  He  was  at  that  time  running 
the  West  End.  They  had  tried  run- 
ning the  West  End  without  Bucks  a 
while ;  then  they  had  tried  again  nm- 
ning  it  with  him.  In  both  instances  it 
was  different. 

But  the  next  time  the  general  man- 
ager was  out  in  his  "special"  he  spoke 
to  Bucks  on  the  subject  as  if  the  men- 
tion were  a  virgin  touch.  Bucks 
muttered  something  about  the  general 
character  of  the  trainmen  and  the 
decent  lives  and  habits  of  the  passen- 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


ger  conductors,  and  finished  with  an 
incidental  expression  of  confidence  in 
the  men ;  that  was  about  all. 

But  the  headquarters  people,  who 
were  largely  Boston,  had  ways  and 
means  all  their  own;  and  failing  to 
interest  Bucks  in  their  hobby,  they 
took  a  tack  like  this. 

To  begin  with,  the  night  was  bad. 
"A  holy  fright,"  Pat  Francis  called  it, 
and  Pat  had  seen  most  of  the  bad 
nights  in  the  mountains  for  twenty- 
two  years  steady.  It  was  snowing 
and  raining  and  sleeting  that  night, 
all  at  once ;  and  blowing — it  blew  the 
oil  out  of  the  g^ide-cups.  From  the 
platform  of  the  Wickiup — nobody  in 
the  gorge  would  call  it  a  depot — from 
the  Wickiup  platform  at  Medicine 
Bend,  No.  i  seemed  to  roll  into  di- 
vision that  night  one  reeking  sheet  of 
alkali  ice — soda  and  frost  solid  from 
lamp  to  lamp. 

She  was  late,  too,  with  a  pair  of  the 
best  engines  that  ever  climbed  a 
mountain  heading  her.  She  had  lost 
time  every  mile  of  the  way  from  the 
plains,  and  she  was  ordered  west  with 
another  double-head  and  a  pusher  all 
the  way  over  the  Horseback.  It  was 
because  there  was  a  Yellowstone  ex- 
cursion aboard.  The  Columbian  Pa- 
cific connection  was  on  that  account 
especially  desired;  and  that  night  at 
twelve  o'clock,  mountain  time,  with 
No.  I  especially  late  into  the  bend, 
and  the  track  especially  bad,  and  the 
pull  especially  heavy,  it  looked — that 
Columbus  Pacific  connection — espe- 
cially doubtful,  except  over  in  the  de- 
spatcher's  office,  where  they  were 
being  pounded  to  make  it  by  the  ex- 
cursion bureau. 

Bucks  was  down  that  night.  There 
were  many  bad  nights  in  the  moun- 


tains, but  Bucks  never  missed  any  of 
them  by  going  to  bed.  On  bad 
nights,  Bucks,  like  a  switchman'^ 
pipe,  was  always  out.  He — Bucks — 
personally  appeared  at  the  Wickiup 
to  see  that  things  went.  The  men 
liked  him  because  he  was  always 
ready  to  do  anything  he  asked  them 
to  do.  There  was  an  esprit,  a  morale 
— whatever  you  call  it — and  a  loyalty 
to  Bucks  personally,  which  made  our 
men  take  the  chances  that  pay  checks 
don't  cover. 

So,  although  the  Columbian  Pacific 
connection  looked  especially  doubtful 
that  night,  nevertheless  there  was 
Bucks,  under  a  slouching  Stetson  and 
an  Irish  frieze  that  caught  all  the 
water  coming  its  way,  standing  at 
the  drivers  of  the  head  engine,  while 
Jack  ]\foore,  in  leather  heel  to  jaw, 
went  into  the  slush  under  her  to  touch 
up  an  eccentric  with  a  reputation  for 
cussedness  in  a  pinch.  And  a  minute 
later  Bucks  was  walking  back  to  fig- 
ure with  the  out  conductor,  Pat  Fran- 
cis, how  to  make  schedule  across  to 
Wild  Hat,  though,  as  they  talked, 
each  man  knew  the  other  was  not 
thinking  at  all  of  how  to  make 
schedule,  but  thinking — though  never 
a  word  out  loud  of  it,  and  hell  to  face 
all  the  way  up  the  gorge  on  top  of  it — 
of  how  with  flesh  and  blood  and  steel 
to  beat  schedule  that  night  and  land 
the  uncertain  connection,  in  spite  of 
wind  and  weather  and  the  bureau's 
fears  and  the  despatcher's  growls. 

And  all  this  for  what?  To  dump  a 
hundred  or  two  Brooklyn  people  into 
the  Yellowstone  twenty-four  hours 
earlier  than  they  otherwise  would 
have  been  dumped,  though  without 
doubt  they  would  have  been  just  that 
much  better  off  loafing  twenty-foiu" 

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hours  longer  away  from  their  news- 
papers and  ferries  and  street  cars. 
Pat  Francis  listened  grimly.  A  short, 
stocky  fellow,  Pat  Francis.  Not  fat, 
but  firm  as  a  Bessemer  bar,  and  with 
considerably  quicker  play  in  his  joints. 
He  listened  grimly,  for  he  thought  he 
could  domino  every  play  Bucks  could 
make  when  it  came  to  tricks  for  sav- 
ing time  on  the  Wild  Hat  run.  Yet 
it  heartened  even  Pat  Francis,  uncom- 
promising and  grim,  to  have  his  su- 
perintendent there  in  the  storm  help- 
ing cut  out  the  work  for  such  a  par- 
ticularly beastly  pull. 

As  Bucks  broke  away  and  started 
for  the  door  of  the  Wickiup,  Morris 
Barker — ^the  conductor  who  had  just 
brought  the  train  in — saluted,  walk- 
ing out.  With  his  coat  buttoned 
lip  snug,  in  the  comfortable  insolence 
of  a  man  going  home,  Morris 
stepped  to  the  edge  of  the  platform 
to  exchange  confidences  with  Pat 
Francis. 

"Pat,  there's  a  half-fare  back  in  the 
Portland  sleeper.  I  heard  Mclntyre 
say  at  McQoud  that  some  of  Alfabet 
Smith's  men  are  working  up  here. 
Anyway  there's  a  cattleman  in  a  can- 
vas coat  in  the  chair  car,  smooth  face, 
red  tie,  to  look  out  for.  He  got  on 
at  Harding  and  tried  a  short  fare  on 
me.     I  sized  him  up  for  a  spotter." 

"Why  didn't  you  .chuck  him  off?" 
growled  Pat  Francis. 

"He  put  up  after  a  while — ^and  you 
bet  that  fare  goes  in  with  an  embroi- 
dered report.  Well,  good  luck. 
Patsy." 

Pat  Francis  raised  his  lamp  through 
the  fog  and  rain  at  the  engineers. 
Jack  Moore  coughed  suddenly  and 
twice,  with  his  hollow  whistle.  The 
bind  engine  saluted  hoarsely;   from 


the  rear  the  pusher  piped  shrill,  and 
Bucks  in  the  doorway  watched  the 
panting  train  pull  taut  up  the  Bend 
in  the  swirling  snow.  And  he  knew 
as  he  watched  that  nothing  worth 
considering  would  get  away  from 
Pat  Francis — not  a  scheme,  nor  a 
cut-off,  nor  a  minute,  nor  a  revamped 
coupon  ticket.  Pat,  before  quitting 
at  Benton,  Pat  up  the  gorge  and 
over  the  Horseback,  was  pretty 
sure  to  catch  everything  inside  the 
vestibules. 

He  swung  up  on  the  platform  of 
the  baggage-car  as  the  train  moved 
out,  and  shook  the  snow  off  his  cap 
as  he  opened  the  door.  He  set  his 
lamp  on  an  up-end  trunk,  took  off  his 
overcoat  and  hung  it  up.  In  the 
front  end  of  the  car  a  pack  of  hunting 
dogs  yelped  a  dismal  chorus.  Old 
John  Parker,  the  baggageman,  was 
checking  up  a  pile  of  trunks  that  rose 
tier  on  tier  to  the  roof  of  the  car. 
John  Parker  wore  a  pair  of  disrepu- 
table iron  spectacles.  His  hair,  scant 
where  it  wasn't  extinct,  tumbled  about 
his  head  loose  at  both  ends.  His  gray 
beard  was  a  good  bit  stronger  in  the 
fly  than  in  the  hoist  and  it  blew  in  the 
wind  thin  as  a  coach  whip;  but  old 
John  had  behind  his  dirty  spectacles 
a  pair  of  eyes  just  as  fine  as  steel.  Fran- 
cis opened  his  train  box  and  asked  the 
baggageman  why  he  didn't  kill  those 
dogs, .  and  getting  no  answer — for 
John  Parker  was  checking  hard  and 
stopped  only  to  shift  his  whiskers  off 
the  clip — the  conductor  got  out  his 
blue  pencil  and  his  black  pencil  and 
filed  them  away,  took  up  his  punch 
and  his  trip  checks  and  put  them  in 
their  proper  pockets,  shifted  his  time- 
table from  the  box  to  still  another 
pocket,   and   picked   up   his   lantern. 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


The  head-end  brakeman  coming  in 
just  then  with  a  sash  puller,  Francis 
asked  him  to  clean  up  the  globe. 

While  the  brakeman  fished  for  a 
piece  of  waste,  the  conductor  moved 
his  wet  overcoat  a  peg  nearer  the 
stove  and  spread  it  out  better,  and  lis- 
tened to  a  wild  rumor  old  John  Par- 
ker had  picked  up  about  No.  i*s 
being  turned  into  a  strictly  "Hmited** 
and  carrying  a  "diner"  west  of  Bear 
Dance.  Without  wasting  any  com- 
ment, Pat  looked  at  his  watch  and  lis- 
tened to  the  click  of  the  truck  over 
the  fish-plates  under  foot,  and  to  the 
angry,  tremulous  roar  of  the  three 
furnaces  melting  coal  to  push  No. 
I  up  against  the  wind,  that  curled 
like  a  corkscrew  down  the  long, 
narrow  gorge.  Then  he  took  the 
lantern  from  his  menial,  and  strode 
quickly  through  the  vestibule  into 
the  dirty  light  and  foul  air  of  the 
smoking  car. 

^Tickets!" 

No*  "please"  that  night;  just 
"Tickets!"  short  and  snappy  as  a 
bear  trap.  He  could  talk  very  differ- 
ently at  home  to  the  babies — but  there 
was  no  suggestion  of  kootsying  in  the 
tone  that  called  for  transportation  in 
the  smoker.  He  passed  down  the 
aisle,  pulling,  hauling,  shaking  the 
snorting  brutes,  noting,  punching, 
checking  under  the  rays  of  his  lamp, 
until  the  last  man  was  passed,  and  he 
walked  into  the  chair  car.  There 
was  only  one  "go-back."  a  sleepy 
Italian  who  couldn't — even  after  he 
had  been  jerked  out  of  his  seat  and 
turned  upside  down  and  inside  out, 
and  shaken  and  cursed — still  he 
couldn't  find  his  ticket.  So  Pat  Fran- 
cis passed  him  with  the  shocking  in- 
timation which  amounted  to  an  as- 


surance, that  if  he  didn't  find  it  by  the 
time  he  got  back  he  would  throw  him 
off. 

The  transportation  on  No.  i  was 
mostly  through  tickets  and  required 
only  ordinary  care  as  to  the  date  lim- 
its; not  much  scalper's  stuff  turned 
up  on  the  west-bound.  Pat  called 
again  as  he  closed  the  door  of  the 
chair  car  t)ehind  him  a  shade  less 
harshly  for  tickets,  because  one  natu- 
rally respects  more  people  who  ride  in 
the  chair  car — ^and  then  there  are 
women.  One  speaks  more  civilly  to 
women  passengers,  but  scans  their 
transportation  more  carefully.  How- 
ever, he  wasn't  thinking  of  women's 
wiles  as  he  quietly  roused  the  sleepers 
and  asked  for  their  credentials.  They 
were  worn,  tired-looking  women; 
haggard,  a  good  many  of  them,  from 
catnaps  snatched  in  the  specially  de- 
vised discomfort  chairs,  while  their 
more  fortunate  sisters  slept  peacefully 
back  in  the  hair-matt ressed  Pullman 
berths.  He  was  thinking  solely,  as 
he  mechanically  went  through  the 
checking  operations,  of  a  cattleman  in 
a"  canvas  coat,  smooth  face  and  red 
tie,  who  should  by  rights  be  now  half 
way  down  the  car,  just  ahead  of  him. 
But  the  conductor  Francis  didn't 
look.  His  eyes  never  rose  beyond  the 
passenger  under  his  nose,  for  in  front 
of  a  company  detective  the  hate  and 
the  curiosity  are  all  concealed;  the 
conductor  is  strictly  on  dress  parade 
with  a  sting  in  his  right  arm  that  he 
would  Kke  to  land  directly  under  the 
spotter's  ear. 

A  shabby  travelling  man — a  cigar 
man — ^handed  up  a  local  ticket.  It 
was  for  Antelope  Gap.  Pat  Francis 
looked  at  it  for  a  minute  before  he 
punched  it  and  stuck  it  in  his  pocket. 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


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"We  don't  stop  at  Antelope  Gap  to- 
night," said  he  shortly. 

"Don't  stop?"  echoed  the  cigar 
man,  wide  awake  in  a  fraction  of  a 
second-  ''Vy,  since  venf  Day  tolt 
me  you  dit,"  he  cried  in  the  most  in- 
jured tone  on  the  train. 

"Can't  help  it." 

''But  vy-er 

"I'm  late." 

"Bud  y'  god-do!"  cried  the  cigar 
man,  raising  a  note  of  absolute  terror, 
as  Pat  Francis  passed  calmly  on  with- 
out attempting  to  controvert  the  con- 
fidence of  the  drummer. 

''Ain't  you  god  dof"  appealed  the 
latter,  weakening  a  bit  as  he  realized 
he  was  up  against  a  quiet  man  and 
hard. 

"Not  on  local  transportation.  Tick- 
ets !"  he  continued  to  the  next. 

But  the  cigar  man  happily  came  of 
a  race  that  does  not  uncomplainingly 
submit,  and  he  kicked  vociferously, 
as  Pat  Francis  expected  he  would. 
By  the  time  the  excited  salesman  had 
woke  everybody  up  in  his  end  of  the 
car  and  worked  himself  into  a  lather, 
Pat  came  at  him  with  a  proposition. 

"Where  are  you  going  from  Ante- 
lope?" 

"Vild  Hat." 

"What's  the  matter  with  going  up 
to  Wild  Hat  to-night  and  I'll  give  you 
a  train  check  back  to  Antelope  on  2 
to-morrow,  then  you  can  get  back  on 
71  to  the  Bend?" 

The  injured  man  considered  quick- 
ly, accepted  speedily.  Two  hundred 
miles  for  nothing.  "My  frient  I  Haff 
a  cigar,  aber  don  forgod  my  dransbor  - 
dation  back,  vill  you?"  The  conduc- 
tor nodded  as  he  took  the  cigar  stoi- 
cally and  moved  on.  It  was  one  stop 
saved,  and  the  Antelope  stop  was  a 


terror  any  time  with  a  big  train  like 
No.  I. 

Francis  had  reached  the  rear  of  the 
chair  car,  when  he  had  an  impression 
he  had  forgotten  something.  He 
stopped  to  think.  The  cattleman! 
Turning,  he  looked  back  sharply  over 
the  passengers.  He  even  walked 
slowly  back  through  the  car  looking 
for  the  fellow.  There  was  no  cattle- 
man in  sight,  and  walking  back, 
Francis  dismissed  him  with  the  con- 
clusion that  he  must  have  gotten  off 
at  the  Bend  and  at  once  the  air  in  the 
chair  car  smelt  fresher  and  cleaner. 
Into  the  sleepers  then — that  was  easy. 
Only  to  take  the  batch  of  envelopes 
from  each  porter  or  conductor,  and 
tear  off  the  coupons  and  in  the  Port- 
land sleeper  a  half- fare,  which  meant 
only  a  little  row  with  the  tactless  man 
who  had  gone  into  a  bitter  discussion 
with  a  conductor  the  day  before  away 
back  at  the  Missouri  River,  as  to 
whether  his  boy  should  pay  fare.  In- 
stead of  gracefully  paying  when 
called  on,  he  had  abused  the  conduc- 
tor, who,  maybe  because  there  was  a 
"spotter"  sitting  by,  had  felt  com- 
pelled for  self-protection  to  collect  the 
half  rate.  But  in  retaliation  for  the 
abuse  the  conductor  had  reported  to 
the  next  conductor  a  half  fare  in  the 
Portland  sleeper,  and  thus  started  an 
endless  chain  of  annoyance  that  would 
haunt  the  traveller  all  the  way  to  the 
coast.  But  sometime  travellers  will 
study  tact,  and  forswear  abuse  and  its 
penalties. 

Conductor  Francis,  finishing  the 
string  of  loaded  Pullmans,  sat  down 
in  the  smoking  room  of  the  last  car 
with  the  hind  end  brakeman  to 
straighten  out  his  collections.  The 
headlight  of  the  pusher  threw  in  a 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


yellow  dazzle  of  light  on  them,  and 
the  continuous  cut  of  its  fire  boomed 
from  the  stack.  Pat  Francis,  setting 
down  his  lamp,  began  to  sniff. 

**Smell  anything?"  he  asked  pres- 
ently of  his  companion. 

"No,"  answered  the  brakeman, 
drawing  his  head  from  the  curtain 
hood  under  which  he  had  been  look- 
ing out  into  the  storm. 

"Something  here  don't  smell  right," 
said  Francis  shortly,  sorting  his  tick- 
ets.   "Where  are  we?" 

"Getting  out  of  the  gorge." 

Francis  looked  at  his  watch.  "Is 
Jack  holding  his  own?"  ventured  the 
brakeman. 

"Just  about." 

"Stop  at  Antelope  to-night?" 

"Not  on  your  life." 

"Red  Cloud?" 

"Not  to-night." 

"How  about  the  pusher?" 

"All  the  way  over  the  Horseback 
to-night." 

"That's  the  stuff." 

"That's  Bucks.  Bucks  is  the  stuff," 
said  Pat  Francis,  arbitrarily  picking 
up  his  lamp  to  go  forward.  Two 
minutes  later  he  was  in  the  smoker, 
bending  over  the  Italian  and  shaking 
him. 

"Got  your  ticket,  Tony?" 

"No  gotta  ticket," 

"Money?" 

"No  gotta  d'  mun." 

"Come  on,  then  I"  Francis  gripped 
him  by  the  collar. 

"\Vhata  do?" 

"Throw  you  off." 

The  Italian  drew  back  to  resist. 
They  parleyed  a  moment  longer,  only 
because  Francis  was  bluffing.  If  he 
had  meant  to  stop  the  train  at  any 
point  he  would  have  said  nothing — 


simply  dragged  the  fellow  out  by  the 
hair. 

At  last  the  Italian  produced  three 
dollars  and  a  half.  It  was  only 
enough  to  check  him  to  Red  Qoud. 
He  wanted  to  go  through,  and  the 
fare  was  eleven  dollars  and  twenty 
cents. 

The  silent  conductor  stuck  the 
money  in  his  pocket  and  drew  his 
cash  fare  slips.  Just  then  the  pusher 
whistled  a  stop  signal.  Francis 
started,  suddenly  furious  at  the 
sound.  Shoving  the  slips  into  his 
pocket,  he  hurried  to  the  vestibule  and 
put  his  head  angrily  out  Ahead  he 
saw  only  old  John  Parker's  lamp  and 
streamers.  John  had  slid  his  door 
before  Francis  could  open  the  vesti- 
bule. That  was  why  the  conductor 
loved  him,  because  nobody,  not  even 
himself,  ever  got  ahead  of  John. 
When  Francis  poked  his  head  out  to 
look  for  trouble,  John  Parker's  head 
was  already  in  the  wind  inspectincf 
the  trouble,  which  came  this  time 
from  the  hind  end.  Looking  back, 
Francis  saw  a  blaze  leaping  from  a 
journal  box. 

"Just  as  I  expected,"  he  murmured, 
with  a  freezing  word.  "That  hind 
end  man  couldn't  smell  a  tar  bucket 
if  you  stuck  his  head  into  it.  Get 
your  grease,  John  P'  he  shouted  to  the 
old  baggageman,  "and  a  pair  of 
brasses.    Hustle !" 

There  was  hardly  time  for  the  crew 
to  slip  into  their  overcoats,  when 
Moore  made  a  sullen  stop.  But  old 
John  Parker  was  ready,  and  waiting 
ahead  of  the  stop  with  a  can  of 
grease,  because  John  didn't  have  any 
overcoat.  He  hustled  bad  nights 
without  an  overcoat,  for  his  two  girls 
were  at  boarding  school  back  in  lUi- 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


259 


nois.  John  picked  up  enough  every 
month  carrying  dc^s  to  buy  an  over- 
coat, but  the  dc^  money  went  largely 
for  music  and  French,  which  were 
extras  in  Illinois;  so  the  girls  parlez 
vous'd  and  John  piled  out  without 
any  overcoat. 

Pat  Francis  stormed  worse  than  the 
mountains  as  he  followed  him.  All 
the  scheming  to  save  a  single  stop 
was  blazing  away  in  the  hot  box. 
Moore,  on  the  head  engine,  was  too 
angry  to  leave  his  cab.  It  was  just 
a  bit  too  exasperating.  The  pusher 
crew  stood  by,  and  the  second  engi- 
neer helped  just  a  little. 

But  it  was  Pat  Francis  and  John, 
with  the  safeties  screaming  bedlam  in 
their  ears,  with  the  sleet  creeping 
confidmgly  down  their  backs,  and 
with  the  water  soaking  unawares  up 
their  legs — it  was  Pat  and  John,  silent 
and  stubborn,  who  dug  bitterly  at  the 
sizzling  box,  flung  out  the  blazing 
waste,  set  the  screw,  twisted  it, 
hooked  out  the  smoking  brasses, 
shoved  in  the  new  ones,  dumped  the 
grease,  stuffed  the  waste,  and  raised 
their  lamps  for  Moore  before  the  last 
of  the  bad  words  had  blown  out  of 
the  head  cab  and  down  the  canon. 
With  a  squeaking  and  groaning  and 
jerking,  with  a  vicious  breakaway  and 
an  anxious  interval  whenever  a  pair 
of  drivers  let  go,  Moore  got  his  enor- 
mous load  rolling  up  the  grade  again, 
and  kept  her  rolling  hour  after  hour 
along  curve  and  tangent  to  the  Horse- 
back, and  across. 

At  the  crest  day  broke,  and  the 
long,  heavy  train,  far  above  the  night 
and  the  storm,  screamed  for  the  sirni- 
mit  yard,  slowed  up,  halted,  and 
every  man-jack  of  the  train  crew  and 


engine  crews  jumped  off  to  shake 
hands  with  himself  on  the  plucky 
run — in  spite  of  it  all,  schedule  and  a 
hair  better. 

"How'd  you  ever  do  it.  Jack?" 
asked  Pat  Francis  at  the  head  engine, 
as  Moore  crawled  out  of  his  cab. 

"How  late  are  we?"  returned  the 
engineer,  stowing  his  can  and  calling 
for  a  wrench. 

"Three  hours." 

"Beat  the  time  a  little,  didn't  we?" 
laughed  Moore,  with  a  face  like  a  lob- 
ster. "Couldn't  done  it,  Pat,  if  you'd 
stopped  me  anywhere.  I  wouldn't 
done  it — not  for  anybody.  Burdick 
is  knocked  clean  out,  too.  Are  you 
all  ready  back  there?"  The  pusher, 
disconnected,  galloped  by  with  a  jubi- 
lant kick  for  the  round-house;  and 
the  double-headers,  watered  and 
coaled  afresh,  started  with  No.  i 
down  the  mountain  side. 

A  different  start  that — a-running 
past  the  wind  instead  of  into  it;  a 
sluing  that  brought  excursionists  up 
in  a  tumble  as  the  sleepers  swung 
lariat-like  around  the  canon  comers. 
It  was  only  a  case  of  hang-on  after 
that,  hanging  on  all  the  way  to  Wild 
Hat ;  and  then,  just  as  the  Columbian 
Pacific  train  passengers  left  their 
breakfasts  at  Benton,  No.  i,  gray  and 
grimy,  rolled  into  the  junction  thirty- 
five  minutes  late  and  the  agony  was 
over.  The  connection  was  safe,  but 
nobody  noticed  who  made  it.  Every- 
body was  too  much  occupied  with  the 
sunshine  and  the  scenery  to  observe 
a  pair  of  disreputable,  haggard, 
streaked,  hollow-eyed  tramps  who 
made  their  way  modestly  along  the 
edge  of  the  crowd  that  thronged  the 
platform.    It  was  only  Pat  Francis 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


and  Moore,  conductor  and  engineer 
of  No.  I. 

The  agony  was  over  for  everybody 
but  Pat  Francis.  Ten  days  later, 
Bucks,  superintendent  of  the  moun- 
tain division,  sat  in  his  den  at  the 
Wickiup,  reading  a  letter  from  the 
general  manager: 

Sir :  On  Thursday,  June  28th,  Con- 
ductor P.  Francis,  leaving  M.  B.  on 
No.  I,  collected  a  cash  fare  of  three 
dollars  and  fifty  cents  from  one  of 
our  special  service  men.  He  failed  to 
issue  a  cash  fare  slip  for  this,  as  re- 
quired; furthermore,  he  carried  this 
passenger  all  the  way  to  Benton. 
Kindly  effect  his  discharge.  Let  it 
be  distinctly  understood  that  all  de- 
linquencies of  this  nature  will  be 
summarily  dealt  with. 

A.  W.  Bannerman^ 
General  Manager, 

It  wasn't  a  letter  to  go  to  the  stove 
— not  that  kind  of  a  letter,  but  Bucks 
fingered  it  much  as  Pat  Francis 
ought  to  have  fingered  the  clever  de- 
tective who  turned  from  the  chair  car 
to  the  "smoker"  on  him  and  from  a 
cattleman  to  a  "dago." 

Bucks  called  the  trainmaster.  Fran- 
cis was  west,  due  to  leave  Benton  that 
afternoon  on  2,  and,  as  luck  would 
have  it,  to  bring  back  the  Brooklyn 
party  from  the  Yellowstone.  And 
the  passenger  department  in  Chicago 
was  again  heating  the  wires  with  in- 
junctions to  take  care  of  them,  and 
good  care  of  them,  because  the  excur- 
sion business  on  a  new  line  is  not  only 
profitable,  but  it  is  hard  to  work  up, 
and  trouble  with  an  excursion  means 
a  hoodoo  for  months,  and  may  be  for 
years  to  come. 

Bucks   felt   especially   gratified   to 


know  that  Pat  Francis  had  the  pre- 
cious load,  but  what  about  the  cash 
fare  from  Medicine  Bend  to  Red 
Cloud?  Bucks  knew  these  things 
couldn't  be  trifled  with — not  on  his 
line — and  he  faced  the  pleasant  pros- 
pect of  next  morning  greeting  his 
right  bower  in  the  passenger  service 
with  an  accusation  of  theft  and  a 
summary  discharge.  If  he  had  only 
asked  me  for  three  dollars  and  a  half, 
thought  Bucks  sorely.  He  would 
rather  have  given  his  own  pay  check 
than  to  have  had  Pat  Francis  hold  up 
one  dollar. 

And  Pat  Francis,  taciturn,  sphinx- 
like, was  punching  transportation  at 
that  particular  moment  on  No.  2  on 
the  run  east  from  Benton.  Checking 
passengers,  keeping  one  eye  on  the 
ventilators  and  the  other  on  the  date 
limits,  working  both  pencils,  both 
hands,  both  ears,  both  ends  of  the 
punch,  and  both  sides  of  the  car  at 
the  same  time. 

There  wasn't  a  cinder  to  break  the 
even  enjoyment  of  the  run  up  to  the 
clouds.  Everybody  was  going  home, 
and  going  home  happy.  From  the 
Pullmans — it  was  warm  and  sunny  in 
the  mountains — came  nothing  but 
rag-time  and  Brooklyn  yells.  To 
describe  our  scenery  might  be  invid- 
ious, but  the  grade  where  No.  2  was 
then  climbing  would  alone  make  the 
fortune  of  an  ordinary  Eastern  scenic 
line. 

The  Overland  Freight,  No.  66,  east- 
bound  with  a  long  train  of  tea,  was 
pulling  out  of  Toltec  station  as  No.  2 
stuck  its  head  into  the  foot  of  the 
Noose. 

At  Toltec,  on  the  day  run,  we  take 
a  man's  breath  and  give  him  large 
value  for  his  money  in  a  bit  of  the 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


261 


prettiest  engineering  anywhere  on 
earth. 

Toltec  lies  in  the  Powder  Range, 
near  the  foot  of  a  great  curve  called 
the  Noose,  because  every  time  an  en- 
gineer slips  the  head  of  his  train  into 
it  he  is  glad  to  hold  his  breath  till  he 
gets  it  out. 

The  Toltec  Noose  is  engineering 
magnificent;  but  it  is  railroading 
without  words — ^unless  one  counts  the 
wicked  words.  Eagle  Pass  station, 
the  head  of  the  Noose,  looks  across 
an  unspeakable  gulf  directly  down 
into  Toltec,  500  feet  below,  and 
barely  a  mile  away.  But  by  the  rail 
we  count  seven  miles  around  that 
curve,  and  without  any  land-g^ant 
perquisites,  either. 

Every  train  that  runs  the  Noose  is 
double-headed  both  ways,  and  now — 
this  was  before — they  add,  to  keep 
trainmen  off  the  relief  scrap,  a 
pusher. 

That. day  there  was  no  pusher  be- 
hind the  Overland  Freight,  and  No. 
2's  crew,  as  they  pulled  out  of  Toltec 
to  climb  the  loop,  could  plainly  see, 
above  and  across,  the  storming,  strug- 
gling, choking  engines  of  the  tea 
train  as  they  neared  with  their  load 
the  summit  of  Eagle  Pass. 

The  wind  bore  down  to  them  in 
breaking  waves  the  sucking,  roaring 
cut  of  the  quivering  furnaces.  Pat 
Francis  stood  in  the  open  door  of  the 
baggage  car,  old  John  Parker  and 
the  head  brakeman  beside  him,  look- 
ing together  at  the  freight  with  the 
absorbed  air  of  men  at  the  bottom  of 
a  well  who  watch  the  loaded  bucket 
near  the  top. 

Through  the  thin,  clear  mountain 
air  they  could  almost  read  the  num- 
bers on  the  eng^e  tenders.     They 


could  see  the  freight  conductor  start 
over  his  train  for  the  head-end,  and 
as  they  looked  they  saw  his  train 
break  in  two  behind  him,  and  the 
rear  end,  parting  like  a  snake's  tail, 
slough  off,  lose  headway,  and  roll 
back  down  the  hill.  The  hind-end 
brakeman,  darting  from  the  caboose, 
ran  up  the  ladder  like  a  cat,  and 
began  setting  brakes.  The!  passen- 
ger crew  saw  the  brake-shoes  clutch 
in  a  flame  at  the  slipping  trucks,  but 
the  drawbars  couldn't  stand  it.  From 
one  of  the  big  tea  cars  a  drawhead 
parted  like  a  tooth.  The  tea  train 
again  broke  in  two,  this  time  behind 
the  rear  brakeman,  and  the  caboose, 
with  five  60,000-pound  cars,  shot 
down  the  grade  and  No.  2  was  now 
climbing  above  Toltec.  %,:: 

A  volley  of  danger  signals  curled 
white  from  the  freight  engine  across 
the  g^lf .  Pat  Francis  sprang  for  the 
bell  cord,  but  it  was  needless;  his  en- 
gineers at  the  very  moment  threw 
double  chambers  of  air  on  the  wheels. 

It  caught  cards  off  the  whist  tables, 
and  swept  baked  potatoes  into  the 
bosoms  of  astonished  diners;  it 
spoiled  the  point  of  pretty  jokes  and 
broke  the  tedium  of  stupid  stories;  it 
upset  roysterers  and  staggered  sober 
men;  it  basted  the  cooks  with  gravy 
and  the  waiters  with  fruit ;  it  sent  the 
blood  to  the  hearts  and  a  chill  to  the 
brains ;  it  was  an  emergency  stop,  and 
a  severe  one — No.  2  was  against  it. 
Before  the  frightened  porters  could 
open  the  vestibules  the  passenger  en- 
gines were  working  in  the  back 
motion,  and  No.  2  was  scuttling 
down  the  Noose  to  get  away  from 
impending  disaster.  The  trainmen 
huddled  again  in  the  baggage-car 
door,   with  their  eyes  glued  on  the 


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262 


CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


runaways;  the  Noose  is  so  perfect  a 
curve  that  every  foot  of  their  flight 
could  be  seen.  It  was  a  race  back- 
wards to  save  the  passenger  train; 
but  for  every  mile  they  could  crowd 
into  its  wheels,  the  runaways  were 
making  two.  Pat  Francis  saw  it 
first — saw  it  before  they  had  covered 
half  the  distance  back  to  Toltec. 
They  could  never  make  the  hill  west 
of  the  Noose;  it  wasn't  in  steam  to 
beat  gravity.  Moreover,  if  they 
crowded  No.  2  too  hard  she  might 
fly  an  elevation,  and  go  into  the  gulf. 
It  is  one  thing  to  run  down  hill  and 
another  thing  to  fall  down  hill.  The 
tea  train  was  falling  down  hill. 

Francis  turned  to  bare-headed 
John  Parker  and  handed  him  his 
watch  and  his  money. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  John 
Parker  choked  the  words  out,  because 
he  knew  what  he  meant. 

"Turn  this  stuflf  in  to  Bucks,  John, 
if  I  don't  make  it.  It's  all  company 
money." 

The  brakeman,  greenish  and  dazed, 
steadied  himself  with  a  hand  on  the 
jamb;  the  baggageman  stared  wild- 
eyed  through  his  rusty  lenses.  "Pat," 
he  faltered,  "what  do  you  mean?" 

"I'll  drop  off  at  the  Toltec  switch 
and  may  be  I  can  open  it  to  catch  that 
string — we'll  never  make  it  this  way, 
John,  in  God's  world." 

"You  might  a'most  as  well  jump 
out  into  the  cation;  you'll  never  live 
to  use  a  switch-key,  Pat — we're 
crowding  a  mile  a  minute — " 

Francis  looked  at  him  steadily  as 
he  pulled  his  ring  and  took  a  switch- 
key  off  the  bunch. 

"They're  crowding  two,  John." 

The  car  slued  under  them.  John 
Parker  tore  oflf  his  spectacU.s. 


"Pat,  I'm  a  lighter  man  than  you — 
give  me  the  switch-key!"  he  cried, 
gripping  the  conductor's  shoulder  as 
he  followed  him  out  the  door  to  the 
platform. 

"No." 

"Your  children  are  younger  than 
mine,  Pat.     Give  me  the  key." 

"This  is  my  train,  John.  Ask 
Bucks  to  look  after  my  insurance." 

With  these  words,  Francis  tore  the 
old  man's  hand  roughly  away.  When 
a  minute  is  a  mile,  action  is  quick. 
Sixty,  seventy  seconds  more  meant 
the  Toltec  switch,  and  the  conductor 
already  hung  from  the  bottcxn  step 
of  the  baggage-car. 

Pat  Francis  was  built  like  a  gorilla. 
He  swung  with  his  long  arms  in  and 
out  from  the  reeling  train  into  a 
rhythm,  one  foot  dangling  in  the  suck 
of  dust  and  cinders,  the  other  bracing 
lightly  against  the  step-tread.  Then, 
with  the  switch-key  in  his  mouth, 
with  Parker's  thin  hair  streaming  over 
him,  and  a  whirlwind  sucking  to  the 
wheels  under  him,  with  No.  2's 
drivers  racing  above  him  and  a  hun- 
dred passengers  staring  below  him, 
Pat  Francis  let  go. 

Men  in  the  sleepers,  only  half  un- 
derstanding, saw  as  he  disappeared  a 
burst  of  alkali  along  the  track.  Only 
old  John  Parker's  gray  eyes  could 
see  that  his  conductor,  though  losing 
his  feet,  had  rolled  clear  of  the  trucks 
and  drivers,  and  was  ttunbling  in  the 
storm  centre  like  a  porcupine.  Above 
him  the  tea  cars  were  lurching  down 
the  grade.  Old  John,  straining,  saw 
Francis  stagger  to  his  feet  and  double 
back  like  a  jack-knife  on  the  ballast. 
A  lump  jumped  into  the  baggageman's 
throat,  but  Francis's  head  rose  again 
out  of  the  dust ;  he  raised  again  on  his 


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CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


263 


hands,  and  dragging  after  him  one 
1^  like  a  dead  thing  crawled  heavily 
towards  the  switch.  He  reached  the 
stand  and  caught  at  it.  He  pulled 
himself  up  on  one  leg,  and  ftimbled 
an  instant  at  the  lock,  then  he  jerked 
the  target.  As  it  fell,  clutched  in 
both  his  hands,  the  caboose  of  the  tea 
train  leaped  on  the  tongue  rail.  The 
fore  truck  shot  into  the  switch.  The 
heels,  caught  for  a  hundredth  of  a 
second  in  the  slue,  flew  out,  and  like 
the  head  of  a  foaming  cur  the  caboose 
doubled  frantically  on  its  trailers. 
The  tea  cars  tripped,  jumped  the 
main  rail  like  cannon  balls,  one,  two, 
three,  four,  five — out  and  into  the 
open  gulf. 

The  crash  rolled  up  the  gorge  and 
down.  It  drove  eagles  from  their 
nests  and  wolves  from  their  hollows. 
Startled  birds  wheeling  above  the 
headlong  cars  shrieked  a  chorus;  a 
cloud  like  smoke  followed  the  wreck 
down  the  mountain  side.  And  the 
good  people  of  No.  2,  the  pleasure- 
seekers  that  Pat  Francis  was  taking 
care  of — $125  a  month — saw  it  all 
and  tried  to  keep  cool  and  think. 

He  lay  prostrate  across  the  road,  a 
bruised  and  dirty  and  bloody  thing. 
John  Parker,  stumbling  on  rickety 
knees,  reached  him  first,  but  he  spoke 
again  and  again  before  the  bloodshot 
eyes  reluctantly  opened.  And  then 
Pat  Francis,  choking,  spitting,  gasp- 
ing, clutching  at  John  Parker's  bony 
arm,  raised  his  head.  It  fell  back 
into  the  cinders.  But  he  doggedly 
raised  it  again — and  shook  the  broken 
teeth  from  between  kU^  lips — ^and 
lived.  His  face  was  like  a  section  of 
beefsteak,  and  the  iron  leg  that  stuck 
the  ballast  last  had  snapped  twice 
under   him.     A   few   minutes   after- 


ward he  lay  in  the  stateroom  of  the 
forward  sleeper,  and  tried  with  his 
burning,  swollen  tongue  to  talk  to 
Brooklyn  men  who  feelingly  stared 
at  him,  and  to  Brooklyn  women  who 
prettily  cried  at  him,  and  to  old  John 
Parker,  who  unsteadily  swore  at  him 
as  he  fanned  his  own  whiskers  and 
Pat  Francis's  head  with  the  baggage 
clip. 

When  No.  2  rolled  into  Medicine 
Bend  next  morning,  Bucks  climbed 
aboard,  and  without  ceremony  el- 
bowed his  way  through  the  excur- 
sionists dressing  in  the  aisles  to  the 
injured  conductor's  stateroom.  He 
was  in  there  a  good  bit.  When  he 
came  out,  the  chief  priests  of  Brook- 
lyn crowded  around  to  say  fast  things 
to  the  superintendent  about  his  con- 
ductor and  their  conductor.  As  they 
talked,  Bucks  looked  in  a  minute  over 
their  heads;  he  did  that  way  when 
thinking.  Then  he  singled  out  the 
Depew  of  the  party  and  put  his  hand 
on  his  shoulder. 

"Look  here,"  said  Bucks,  and  his 
words  snapped  like  firecrackers,  "I 
want  you  gentlemen  to  do  something 
for  your  conductor." 

"We've  made  up  a  purse  of  $300 
for  him,  my  friend,"  announced  the 
spokesman,  gladly. 

"I  don't  mean  that,  not  that.  He's 
in  trouble.  You  needn't  waste  any 
breath  on  me.  I  know  that  man  as 
well  as  if  I'd  made  him.  I'll  tell  you 
what  I  want.  I  want  you  to  come  up- 
stairs and  dictate  your  account  of  the 
accident  to  my  stenographer.  While 
you're  eating  breakfast,  he'll  copy  it, 
and  you  can  all  sign  it  afterward. 
Will  you?" 

"Will  we  ?    Get  your  slave  1" 

"I'll     tell     you     why,"     continued 


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264 


CONDUCTOR  PAT  FRANCIS 


Bucks,  addressing  the  Brookljm  nian 
impressively.  "You  look  like  a  man 
who,  may  be,  knows  what  trouble  is." 

"I  do." 

"I  thought  so,"  exclaimed  Bucks, 
warmly.  "If  that's  so,  we  belong  to 
the  same  lodge — same  degree.  You 
see,  there's  charges  against  him. 
They've  had  spotters  after  him," 
added  Bucks,  lowering  his  voice  to  the 
few  gentlemen  who  crowded  about. 

"There's  plenty  of  Brooklyn  men 
here  for  a  lynching!" 

Bucks  smiled  a  far-off  smile,  "The 
boys  wouldn't  trouble  you  to  help  if 
they  could  catch  them.  I  want  your 
statement  to  send  in  to  headquarters 
with  Francis's  answer  to  the  charges. 
They  tried  to  make  him  out  a 
thief,  but  I've  just  found  out  they 
haven't  touched  him.  His  explana- 
tion is  perfectly  straight." 

The  men  of  Brooklyn  tumbled  up 
the  Wickiup  stairs.  At  breakfast  the 
news  travelled  faster  than  hot  rolls. 
When  the  paper  was  drawn,  the  sign- 
ing began;  but  they  so  crowded  the 
upper  floor  that  Bucks  was  afraid  of 
a  collapse,  and  the  testimonial  was 
excitedly  carried  down  to  the  waiting 
room.  Then  the  women  wanted  to 
sign.  When  they  began  it  looked 
serious,  for  no  woman  could  be  hur- 
ried, and  those  who  were  creatures  of 
sentiment  dropped  a  tear  on  their  sig- 
natures, thinking  the  paper  was  to 
hang  in  Pat  Francis's  parlor. 

In  the  end,  Bucks  had  to  hold  No. 
2  thirty  minutes,  and  to  lay  out  the 
remains  of  the  tea  train,  which  was 
still  waiting  to  get  out  of  the  yard. 

After  the  last  yell  from  the  depart- 
ing excursionists,  Bucks  went  back 
to  his  office  and  dictated  for  the  gen- 
eral manager  a  report  of  the  Toltec 


wreck.     Then  he  wrote  this  letter  to 
him: 

"Replying  to  yours  of  the  8th,  rela- 
tive to  the  charges  against  conductor 
P.  J.  Francis,  I  have  his  statement  in 
the  matter.  The  detective  who  paid 
the  cash  fare  to  Red  Cloud  was  not 
put  off  there  because  no  stop  was 
made,  the  train  being  that  night  under 
my  orders  to  make  no  stops  below 
Wild  Hat.  It  was  the  first  of  the 
Brooklyn  Yellowstone  excursions,  and 
Chicago  was  anxious  to  make  the 
Columbian  Pacific  connection.  This 
was  done  in  spite  of  No.  I's  coming 
into  this  division  three  hours  late  and 
against  a  hard  storm.  At  Wild  Hat 
the  detective,  rigged  as  an  Italian, 
was  overlooked  in  the  hurry  and  car- 
ried by.  While  no  cash- fare  slip  was 
issued,  the  fare  was  turned  in  by  Con- 
ductor Francis  to  the  auditor  in  the 
regular  way,  and  investigation  of  his 
trip  will,  he  tells  me,  confirm  his  state- 
ment of  fact.  If  so,  I  think  you  will 
agree  with  me  that  he  is  relieved  of 
any  suspicion  of  dishonesty  in  the 
matter.  I  have,  nevertheless,  cau- 
tioned him  on  his  failure  to  hand  the 
passenger  a  fare-voucher,  and  have 
informed  him  that  his  explanation 
was  entirely  satisfactory ;  in  fact,  after 
the  affair  at  Toltec,  he  deserves  a 
great  deal  more  from  the  company. 
By  request  of  the  Brooklyn  excur- 
sionists, I  inclose  an  expression  of 
their  opinion  of  Conductor  Francis's 
jump  from  No.  2  to  set  the  Toltec 
switch.  All  of  which  is  respectfully 
submitted.  j.  p.  Bucks, 

^*  Superintendent." 

Pat  Francis  is  still  running  passen- 
ger. But  Alfabet  Smith's  men  work 
more  now  on  the  East  End. 


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\':«fc^3s:sxiXBSOK»>^^ 


FASTEST  TROTTER  IN  THE  WORLD'S   HISTORY 


THE  two-minute  trotter  has 
come.  A  few  years  ago 
the  most  experienced  horse- 
men of  the  country  would 
have  ridiculed  the  idea  of  such  a 
record,  but  gradually  the  figures 
have  been  dropping,  dropping,  until 
this  remarkable  time  is  reached.  Lou 
Dillon  is  the  trotter ;  Readville,  Mass., 
August  24,  the  track  and  date. 

Have  our  horses  then  improved  so 
wonderfully  since  the  day  in  1856 
when  Flora  Temple  won  enduring 
fame  by  trotting  a  mile  in  2.24  1-2? 
It  is  an  open  question.  Fifty  years, 
ago  the  trotter  was  hampered  with 
heavy  shoes  and  bulky  harness  and 
dragged  behind  a  big  wooden- 
wheeled,  iron-tired  gig.  To-day  the 
shoes  are  light  as  skill  can  make  them, 
the  harness  is  a  web,  and  the  sulky  is 
a  skeleton  on  pneumatic-tired  bicycle 
wheels.  Moreover,  before  the  Queen 
of  the  Turf  dashes  a  running  horse, 
to  set  the  pace  and  stir  ambition,  at- 
tached to  a  sulky  equipped  to  shield 


wind  and  dust  from  the  record-maker. 
But  with  or  without  all  this,  Lou 
Dillon  is  yet  a  wonderful  horse.  The 
five-year-old  chestnut  mare  is  said 
to  be  as  sensitive  as  a  woman.  In 
the  now  famous  race  the  bell  rang 
to  stop  just  at  the  start,  but  to  the 
astonishment  of  many  the  horse  was 
kept  going.  Her  driver,  Sanders, 
explaining  this,  said: 

"I  didn't  notice  the  clanging  of  the 
bell  and  really  didn't  hear  it.  I  saw 
the  starter  nod  his  head  and  that  was 
enough  for  me.  Had  I  moved  my 
head  to  nod,  or  make  any  kind  of  a 
suggestion  or  a  signal,  the  little  mare 
would  have  noticed  it.  She  is  the 
most  sensitive  horse  I  ever  drove  or 
ever  heard  of.  Why.  she  almost  re- 
sponds to  my  every  wish,  she  is  so 
sensitive.  By  moving  my  head  she 
will  immediately  change,  say,  from 
a  2.20  gait  to  a  gait  like  she  showed 
to-day.    She  is  perfect  in  every  way." 

Last  spring  C.  K.  G.  Billings 
bought    Lou    Dillon    at    auction    for 

265 

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Lou  Dillon 


$12,500.  To-day  she  is  worth  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  to  him.  She  is 
the  first  horse  to  trot  to  championship 
in  a  first  season  on  the  turf ;  she  is  the 
youngest  horse  to  obtain  the  record, 
and  she  is  the  only  trotting  champion 
that  never  appeared  in  a  race. 

We  all  remember  Dexter  when 
Budd  Doble  drove  him  to  2.17J4  at 
Buffalo.    That  was  eleven  years  after 


Flora  Temple  had  set  the  pace. 
Then  came  Goldsmith  Maid  in  2.14, 
followed  by  Rarus  in  2.13J4,  by  St 
Julien  in  2.iij4,  and  next  by  the 
great  Maud  S.  in  2.08 J^.  Jay-Eye- 
See,  Sunol,  Nancy  Hanks,  Alix,  The 
Abbot  gradually  lowered  the  mark 
until  Cresceus  won  the  crown  at 
2.02}4,  and  held  it  up  to  the  day 
I^u  Dillon  made  her  record. 


THE   ARTHUR   MONUMENT 


A  simple  but  noteworthy  ceremony 
took  place  August  20,  1903,  in  the 
dedication  of  a  granite  monument 
marking  the  site  of  the  birthplace  of 
the  late  President  Chester  A.  Arthur 
at  Fairfield,  Vt.  It  was  an  event 
significant  of  the  esteem  in  which  is 
held  the  memory  of  a  worthy,  if  per- 
haps not  a  great  President — one 
whose  accession  to  the  presidency 
occurred  under  the  same  sad  and 
painful  circumstances  as  made  pos- 
266 


sible     the     accession     of     President 
Roosevelt. 

In  a  lengthy  address  delivered  at 
the  dedication,  former  Senator  Wil- 
liam E.  Chandler  of  New  Hampshire, 
who  was  Secretary  of  the  Navy  in 
Arthur's  Cabinet,  reviewed  the  chief 
events  of  Arthur's  life.  Arthur  was 
particularly  fortunate  in  having,  as 
Senator  Chandler  phrased  it,  "a 
patient,  noble  father,  the  Rev.  Wil- 
liam Arthur,  who  was  a  clergyman, 


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MEN   AND    EVENTS 


267 


an  author,  and  for  a  time  the  princi- 
pal of  a  country  academy  at  Willis- 
ton*  Vermont,  and  who  spared  no 
pains  in  the  instruction  of  his  oldest 
boy." 

President  Arthur's  salient  charac- 
teristics undoubtedly  were  kindliness 
and  int^^ty,  and  the  capacity  of 
winning  the  love  and  admiration  of 
those  who  knew  him  as  he  was. 

"The  whole  service  of  President 
Arthur,"  ss^id  Senator  Chandler, 
"seems  to  have  been  performed  with 
wisdom  and  ability.  Between  his 
participation  on  October  19,  1881,  in 
the  dedication  of  the  Yorktown 
Monument  and  his  address  as  a  part 
of  the  ceremonies  attending  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Washington  Monument 
on  February  21,  1885,  there  was  a 
long  line  of  administrative  acts,  none 


of  which  have  been  severely  criticised 
or*  justly  condemned  from  any 
quarter/' 


GENERAL   ALGER 


In  connection  with  the  Detroit 
celebration,  of  which  mention  is  made 
elsewhere  in  these  pages,  the  name  of 
General  Russell  A.  Alger,  a  citizen  of 
whom  Detroit  is  deservedly  proud, 
comes  prominently  before  the  public 

In  reviewing  the  life  of  General 
Alger,  one  is  impressed  no  less  by  the 
qualities  of  rugged  strength  and  in- 
dependence in  his  character  than  by 
the  manifold  services  he  has  rendered 
his  country.  General  Alger's  Civil 
War  record  alone  is  one  of  distin- 
guished bravery. 


He  is  essentially  a  type  of  the  "self- 
made"  man.  Born  on  an  Ohio  farm, 
left  an  orphan  at  eleven  years  of  age, 
his  early  life  was  one  of  struggle. 
Like  so  many  other  famous  men,  he 
chose  the  profession  of  law,  but  later 
gave  it  up  to  engage  in  the  lumber 
business.  At  the  opening  of  the  Civil 
War,  he  was  mustered  into  the  ser- 
vice of  the  United  States  as  captain 
of  a  company.  His  rise  in  the  service 
was  rapid,  his  gallant  and  meritorious 
record  being  too  well  known  to  be  re- 
capitulated here.    In  all,  he  took  part 


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268  MEN   AND   EVENTS 

in  sixty-six  battles  and  skirmishes 
during  the  War  of  the  Rebellion. 
Major-General  Alger  stands  among 
the  leading  veterans  of  the  Civil  War. 
In  1889,  he  was  unanimously  chosen 
commander-in-chief  of  the  G.  A.  R. 
for  the   ensuing  year. 

In  1865  he  settled  in  DetrcMt.  In 
business  he  has  met  with  conspicu- 
ous success,  being  connected  with  vast 
lumber  interests.  Everybody  knows 
more  or  less  of  his  identification  with 
politics  and  his  work  as  Secretary 
of  War  during  the  recent  Spanish 
War. 

General  Alger  was  appointed  to 
the  vacancy  caused  by  the  death  of 
Senator  McMillan  in  the  United 
States  Senate,  and  in  1903  was  elected 
to  that  high  office.  His  term  expires 
General  Alger  March  3,  1907. 


SIR   GILBERT  AND   LADY  CARTER 

And    so   another   persuasive   Eng-  brunette,  of  twenty-eight  years,  who 

Hshman  has  won  for  himself  a  fair  has  been  a  great  favorite  in  exclusive  ^^ 

American  bride.     And  this  time  she  Boston    society.      Her    mother    is  a 

is  from  Boston.     The   lucky  man  is  member  of  the  old  Dorchester  family 

Sir  Gilbert  Thomas  Carter,  K.  C.  M.  of  Codmans.    Sir  Gilbert,  who  was  a 

G.,  governor  and  commander-in-chief  widower  when  he  met  Miss  Parker, 

of  the  Bahamas,  who,  on  August  26,  is  a  fine  looking  man  of  fifty-five,  and 

was  married  to  Miss  Gertrude  Cod-  has  several  children, 
man  Parker,  daughter  of  Mrs.  Mary         This  international  marriage  was  the 

Codman  Parker  and  the  late  Francis  result  of  a  romance  that  began  last 

Vose  Parker.    The  new  Lady  Carter  winter,    when    the    bride,    with    her 

is    a    handsome    and    accomplished  parents,  passed  the  season  at  Nassau. 


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MEN   AND    EVENTS 


269 


Photo  by  Notman 

Sir  Gilbert  Carter 


Photo  by  Notman 

Lady  Carter 


Her  father  was  in  poor  health,  and 
Sir  Gilbert,  who  was  also  at  Nassau, 
was  especially  devoted  to  him,  and  to 
the  family.  Mr.  Parker  died  in 
March,  and  two  months  later  the  en- 
gagement was  announced. 

Sir  Gilbert  was  the  only  son  of 
Commander  Thomas  Gilbert  Carter 
of  the  royal  navy;  on  his  mother's 
side  he  is  of  American  descent,  his 
grandmother  having  been  before  mar- 
riage Miss  Annie  Gilbert  of  Virginia. 
After  attending  the  royal  naval  school 
at  Greenwich,  he  spent  eleven  years 
in  active  naval  service.  A  man  of 
great  executive  ability,  he  has  served 


in  important  official  capacities,  which 
culminated  in  1898  in  his  appoint- 
ment as  governor  and  commander-in- 
chief  of  the  Bahamas.  It  was  while 
governor  and  commander-in-chief  of 
the  Lagos  that  the  Queen  conferred 
upon  him  the  honor  of  knighthood  for 
his  successful  conduct  of  expeditions 
into  the  interior  of  that  little  known 
region. 

Sir  Gilbert's  favorite  diversions  are 
gardening,  athletic  sports  and  natural 
history,  in  which  latter  he  is  regarded 
as  an  authority  by  experts.  His  pri- 
vate grounds  are  among  the  famous 
sights  of  the  Bahamas. 


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270 


MEN   AND   EVENTS 


From  hU  latest  Photograph 


CHARLES    ELIOT    NORTON 


Prof.  Charles  Eliot  Norton  has 
retired  from  his  office  as  "Master  of 
the  Feast"  at  the  annual  Ashfield  din- 
ner, which  he  has  filled  so  long  and  so 
brilliantly.  Professor  Norton,  now  a 
man  of  advanced  years,  has  long  been 
a  distinguished  figure  in  the  literary 
and  educational  world.  For  many 
years  he  was  at  the  head  of  the  Fine 
Arts  Department  at  Harvard,  from 
which  institution  he  was  graduated  in 
1846.  He  was  born  at  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  and  comes  from  fine 
old  New  England  stock.  Professor 
Norton  received  the  degree  of 
Doctor  of  Literature  from  Cam-  ^ 
bridge  University  (England)  in  1844,  \^ 
Doctor  of  Laws  from  Harvard  in 
1887,  and  Doctor  of  Humanities 
from  Columbia  in  1888.  He  is 
a     member     of     the     Massachusetts 


Historical  Society,  a  fellow  of  the 
American  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sci- 
ences, and  a  member  of  the  Imperial 
German  Archaeological  Institute.  In 
literature  he  has  done  some  notable 
work.  He  has  published  "Notes  of 
Travel  and  Study  in  Italy";  "His- 
torical Studies  of  Church  Building  in 
the  Middle  Ages";  and  a  translation 
of  Dante's  "Vita  Nuova"  and  "Di- 
vina  Commedia."  He  has  be- 
sides edited  the  correspondence  of 
Carlyle  and  Emerson,  and  that 
of  Goethe  and  Carlyle,  also  Car- 
lyle's  Reminiscences  and  Letters, 
the  letters  of  James  Russell  Lowell, 
and  the  Orations  and  Addresses  of 
George  William  Curtis,  who,  as  is  well 
known,  was  his  near  neighbor  at  Ash- 
field, and  his  predecessor  as  "Master 
of  the  Feast." 


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From  a  photograph,  Copyright  1897,  by  Foster  Bros.,  Publishers,  Boston. 

Faith,  Hope  and  Love 

From  the  Painting  by  Mary  L.  Macomber 
(See  page  278) 


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The 
New  England M\gazine 


New  Series 


NOVEMBER,  I903 


VOL.  XXIX  No.  3 


Jv  7 


An  Unknown  Whittier  PoS^!2«i£2^i^ 

Verses  by  the  Quaker  Poet  never  before  published 


THE  readeis  of  the  New  Eng- 
land Magazine  will  be  able 
to  add  to  their  collection  of 
poems  by  John  G.  Whittier 
the  hitherto  unpublished  verses  which 
appear  in  the  following  pages.  The 
original  manuscript  is  in  the  possession 
of  Mrs.  Anna  M.  Gove  oi  Seabrook, 
New  Hampshire,  who,  until  now,  has 
refused  permission  to  allow  publication 
of  the  poem.  Mrs.  Gove  is  the  daugh- 
ter-in-law of  the  two  friends  of  Whittier 
for  whom  the  poem  was  written. 

The  poem  was  read  on  the  fifty- 
fiftli  anniversary  of  the  marriage  of 
Edward  and  Elizabeth  Gove  at  their 
house  in  Seabrook,  New  Hampshire, 
-August  29,  1872,  in  the  presence  of  many 
friends  who  met  to  celebrate  that  occa- 
sion. 

Elizabeth  Gove  was  the  same  dear 
friend  of  Whittier  whose  death,  the 
following  year,  called  forth  from  his 
heart  and  pen  that  beautiful  poem 
which  has  attracted  so  much  notice, 
"The  Friend's  Burial." 

Edward  and  Elizabeth  Gove  were 
l)oth  ministers  in  the  Society  of 
Friends  for  over  fifty  years,  and  in 
later     life     attended     the     same     meeting 


with  John  G.  Whittier.  They  lived 
on  one  of  the  ancestral  Gove  farms, 
the  house,  built  in  1720,  being  still  oc- 
cupied by  the  .seventh  generation  in  their 
line.  Inside  the  house  remams  es- 
sentially as  it  was  built,  still  retaining 
its  large  chimneys  and  open  fire-places. 
Outside  it  has  been  changed  somewhat 
by  a  bow  window  and  piazza.  Its  loca- 
tion is  about  three  miles  from  Elm- 
field,  the  home  of  Miss  Sarah  A.  Gove 
in    Hampton    Falls,    where    Whittier    died 

Edward  Gove  was  a  direct  descend* 
ant  of  Edward  Gove,  who  came  to 
this  country  in  1640,  and  later  settled 
in  Seabrook  (then  Hampton).  Being 
a  member  of  the  provincial  Assembly 
he  stirred  up  a  rebellion  against  Gran- 
field,  was  tried  and  condemned  for 
high  treason,  and  sentenced  to  an  aw- 
ful death,  but  the  sentence  being  com- 
muted he  was  confined  in  the  Tower 
of  London  for  a  long  time,  then  par- 
doned and  restored  to  his  family.  The 
original  pardon,  the  gun  and  the  sword 
given  him  by  the  King,  are  still  cher- 
ished possessions  among  his  descendants. 

Elizabeth  Morrell  jGove  was  born  in 
North  Berwick,  Maine,  in  1797,  and  the 
house  where  she  was  born  is  still  standing. 

273 


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•iSfo 


Greetings  to  Old  Friends 

To  Edward  and  Elizabeth  Gove,  on  the  Fifty-fifth 

Anniversary  of  their  Marriage,  29th  of 

8th  mo.,  1872 

Full  fifty  years  ago  you  took 

Each  other's  hand  in  meeting, 

No  wedding  guests  by  railroad  came, 
No  telegrams  sent  greeting. 

Here,  in  a  plain  old-fashioned  way 
Your  common  life  beginning, 

While  Edward  cut  his  salt-marsh  hay, 
Elizabeth  was  spinning. 

What  years  of  toil  and  care  were  yours, 

What  trials  and  what  losses, 
It  matters  not.     They  only  wear 

The  crowns  who  bear  the  crosses. 

And  nought  avails  it  now  to  tell 

The  story  of  your  trials, 
What  ills  from  granted  wishes  grew. 

What  blessings  from  denials. 

Suffice  it  that  by  thorny  ways 

You  reached  the  heights  of  duty. 

That  the  sharp  chisel  of  the  Lord, 
Shaped  out  your  spiritual  beauty. 

And  thus  you  gained  a  clearer  sense. 

Of  human  lack  and  failing, 
That  truer  made  your  warning  words ; 

Your  counsel  more  availing. 

Now  sweet  and  calm  the  face  of  age 
Looks  from  the  Quaker  bonnet. 

The  gray  head  matches  well  the  drab. 
Of  the  broad  brim  upon  it. 


27* 


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"M 


And  using  still  without  abuse 
The  gifts  of  God  so  ample, 

Against  the  folly  of  the  times, 
You  set  your  wise  example. 

You  saw  the  world  run  railroad  speed. 
And  show  with  show  competing. 

And  in  your  plain  old  one-horse  shay. 
Jogged  off  to  mill  and  meeting. 

And  while  the  rival  sects  their  charms 
Urged  round  you  fast  and  faster. 

You  wrought  with  patient  quietude 
The  service  of  the  Master. 


You  heard  more  clear  the  still  small  voice 
As  outward  sounds  grew  louder, 

Unmixea  you  kept  your  simple  faith, 
And  made  no  spiritual  chowder. 

You  had  your  hours  of  doubt  and  fear, 
In  common  with  all  living. 

You  erred,  you  failed,  you  felt  each  day 
The  need  of  God's  forgiving. 

Still  tenderly  and  graciously 

A  Father's  hand  was  leading; 

And  all  the  while  your  utmost  need 
His  mercy  was  exceeding. 

J.  G.  Whittier 


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CMGLAND  ARTISTS  • 


Miss  Macomber's  Paintings 

By  William  Howe  Dowries 


THERE  are  times  when  we 
feel  that  much  modern  art 
is  mere  trifling  with  unim- 
portant themes.  Great  sub- 
jects are  always  at  hand  for  those  who 
are  brave  enough  to  treat  them.  Re- 
ligious art  as  it  existed  in  Italy  before 
the  Renaissance  we  can  not  expect  to 
see  revived ;  we  should  not  care  to  see 
it  revived  as  it  was  then  and  there; 
but  we  would  like  to  see  in  modern 
l)ainting  and  sculpture  something  of 
the  same  spirit,  allied  to  modern  ideals, 
philosophy,  ethics.  Too  much  of  our 
work  is  materialistic,  matter-of-fact, 
and  untouched  by  imagination.  Too 
little  of  it  is  related  to  what  we  may 
call  the  best  thinking  of  our  time. 
Jt  is  uninspired,  shallow  and  common- 
place in  conception,  and  in  many  in- 
stances superficial.  It  would  be  un- 
fair to  ask  too  much,  but  it  is  always 
reasonable  to  demand  that  artists 
should  give  us  their  best,  not  only  in 
workmanship  but  in  thought.  Emer- 
son hit  the  nail  on  the  head  when  he 
276 


said,  "Art  has  not  yet  come  to  its  ma- 
turity, if  it  do  not  put  itself  abreast 
with  the  most  potent  influences  of  the 
world,  if  it  is  not  practical  and  moral, 
if  it  do  not  stand  in  connection  with 
the  conscience."  The  objections  so 
often  advanced  against  literary  paint- 
ing and  sculpture  are  sufficiently  re- 
futed, if  they  require  any  refutation, 
by  the  silent  and  unanswerable  ex- 
ample of  the  Old  Masters,  not  to  speak 
of  Delacroix,  Hogarth,  Boecklin  and 
LaFargc. 

For  these  reasons  there  was  rejoic- 
ing when  Miss  Macomber  entered  the 
art  arena  some  fourteen  years  ago. 
She  not  only  had  ideas,  but  they  were 
good  ones,  and  she  manifested  a  rapid- 
ly improving  capacity  of  expressing 
them  in  acceptable  pictorial  terms. 
The  allegories  that  she  invented,  such 
as  "Love  Awakening  Memory,"  ex- 
hibited at  the  World's  Fair  of  1893, 
were  not  titular,  as  so  many  painted 
allegories  are,  but  were  inspired  by 
ideas  of    real    spiritual    significance; 

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MISS  MACOMBER'S  PAINTINGS 


277 


Miss  Mary  L.  Macomber 

neither  were  they  coldly  intellectual 
concepts  worked  out  with  ingenuity 
and  adroitness,  like  certain  graphic  re- 
buses overladen  with  archaic  symbols 
for  the  edification  of  the  erudite.  Be- 
hind them  were  gracious  and  tender 
fancies,  of  human  and  universal  ap- 
plication,— ideas  of  life  and  nature 
suitable  for  pictorial  expression,  em- 
bodied in  charming  and  lovely  forms. 
These  motives  were  not  complicated 
nor  abstruse ;  they  were  clear  and 
simple;  and  the  language  in  which 
they  were  set  forth  was  not  borrowed 
from  old  art,  but  had  a  concise,  clear 
and  lucid  character  of  its  own. 
Moreover,  the  style,  evolved  naturally 
from  the  nature  of  the  themes,  was 
from  the  outset  essentially  decorative. 
In  effect  we  had  the  double  attractive- 
ness of  imaginative  creation  and  of 
painted  decoration.  There  was  deli- 
cacy of  sentiment  united  to  delicacy 
of  workmanship,   a  combination    full 


of  charm.  It  had  remained  for  a  wom- 
an, an  American  woman,  a  New  Eng- 
land woman,  to  bring  forward  this 
union  of  the  practical  and  the  moral 
in  art,  and  to  remind  us  that  all  ques- 
tions are  moral  questions.  Her  art  is 
not  a  reversion  to  obsolete  types ;  it  is 
a  natural  evolution  of  ideal  art. 

That  the  appearance  of  such  work 
responded  in  some  sort  to  an  unex- 
pressed and  perhaps  unconscious  de- 
sire on  the  part  of  the  public  at  large, 
as  well  as  of  the  artists,  I  have  reason 
to  believe,  for  the  expressions  of  ear- 
nest and  enthusiastic  approbation  have 
been  from  the  first  notable,  and  in 
fourteen  years  no  less  than  twenty- 
five  of  Miss  Macomber's  paintings 
have  been  exhibited  at  the  National 
Academy  of  Design,  establishing  a 
record  for  a  woman  artist,  which  testi- 
fies conclusively  as  to  the  judgment 
of  the  profession.  Exceptional  also 
have  been  the  voluntary  verdicts  of 
those  who  have  become  the  owners 
of  her  pictures.  They  say  in  several 
instances  that  the  amount  of  satis- 
faction and  enjoyment  they  derive 
from  these  works  is  quite  extraordi- 
nary, that  they  grow  upon  the  appre- 
ciation constantly,  and  become  sources 
of  ever  increasing  pleasure  of  the 
highest  kind.  It  will  be  observed,  in 
the  list  of  Miss  Macomber's  works 
which  is  given  at  the  conclusion  of 
this  paper,  that  many  of  the  pictures 
painted  in  the  past  two  years  have 
been  special  orders,  designed  for  spe- 
cial places  in  the  rooms  of  the  owners, 
with  a  view  to  their  decorative  effect ; 
some  of  them  have  been  set  into  panels 
in  the  walls  above  mantel-pieces,  for 
instance,  with  the  most  satisfactory 
results. 

The  naivete  of  the  artist's  earliest 


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Copyright,  1903,  by  R.  C.  Vosc 


Dancing  Water 


works  is  a  quality  which  must  not  be 
overlooked,  since  it  is  a  particularly 
valuable  aesthetic  trait,  and  can  never 
be  acquired  consciously.  Certain  fig- 
ures belonging  to  that  first  manner 
have  the  gracious  quaintness  of  the 
types  in  a  Benozzo  Gozzoli,  though  I 
have  no  idea  that  the  artist  ever  saw 
an  original  by  that  painter.  She  has 
never  travelled  beyond  the  borders  of 
the  United  States,  by  the  way,  and 
278 


whatever  resemblances,  such  as  this 
one  that  I  have  mentioned,  bring  to 
mind  the  Italian  primitives,  it  is  ob- 
vious that  they  are  entirely  fortuitous. 
There  are  spiritual  affinities  in  art 
which  occasionally  crop  out  in  this 
way,  and  which  are  easily  to  be  dis- 
tinguished from  imitations,  since 
imitations,  while  reproducing  the 
mannerisms,  invariably  miss  the  psy- 
chological qualities  of  the  models. 


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An  Instrument  of  Many  Strings 


In  Miss  Macomber's  "Annuncia- 
tion" and  "Love  Awakening  Memory" 
(1893)  the  naivete,  expressing  itself 
in  a  certain  timidity,  a  certain  quaint- 
ness  of  types,  a  certain  modesty  of  sen- 
timent, is,  then,  an  innate  quality.  It 
is  accompanied  by  a  pallid  and  anaemic 
coloring,  delicate  and  cool,  which  is 


later  to  be  fortified  and  enriched  by  a 
warmer  and  deeper  palette.  The  draw- 
ing, betraying  feebleness  at  some 
points,  is  timid  and  hesitating,  but 
manifests  a  studious  disposition  and 
an  earnest  endeavor  to  attain  veracity 
and  naturalness.  It  is  of  a  serious  in- 
tention,  and,   in   passages   where  the 


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From  a  Copley  Print,  Copyright  190a  by  Curtis  &  Cameron,  Publishers,  Boston 

Memory  Comforting  Sorrow 


sense  of  grace  or  of  character  is  espe- 
cially aroused  to  keenness,  it  shows 
promise  of  the  plastic  eloquence  that 
surely  follows  sensibility  and  sensi- 
tiveness to  beauty.  At  once  the  ob- 
server is  made  aware  of  the  working 
280 


of  an  imagination  of  individual  quali- 
ty, the  presence  of  a  temperament  at 
once  patient,  thoughtful  and  ardent. 
The  problem  of  reducing  psychologi- 
cal phenomena  to  pictorial  terms  i> 
formidable.    It  has  to  be  done  by  put- 


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MISS   MAC:OMBER^S  PAINTINGS 


281 


there  is  notliinj^  more  childish,  absurd 
and  tiresome  than  the  mechanical  in- 
troduction of  all  these  well-worn  de- 
vices in  religious  and  mythological 
compositions.  Their  conventional  em- 
ployment involves  no  invention ;  they 
are  made  to  serve  the  same  use  as  a 
uniform  or  a  badp^e  worn  by  a  police- 
man, a  fireman,  a  messenger,  or  a 
janitor,  simply  as  a  means  of  iden- 
tification. A  host  of  these  attributes, 
culled  from  hand-l)ooks,  stands  ready 
for  use,  and  may  be  regarded  as  the 
common  property  of  mural  decorators, 
designers  of  tomb-stones,  and  purvey- 
ors of  ecclesiastical  and  patriotic  bric- 
a-brac.  All  the  ]K)etry  is  gone  from 
them,  all  their  freshness  has  departed, 
and  they  are  regarded  either  with  in- 
difference or  contempt.  If  we  are  to 
l)e  addressed  in  parables  at  this  day, 
it  must  be  in  a  new  tongue  inspired 
by  fresh  and  original  ideas.  The 
ready-made    paraphernalia    of    cheap 


detestable  parody  of  the  real  symbol- 
ism which  is  so  inspiring  and  stimulat- 
ing. 

Cheap  symbolism  is  contented  by 
the  employment  of  the  traditional 
signs  consecrated  by  usage,  and  of 
these  there  is  no  end.  I  need  not 
name  the  items  that  compose  its 
arsenal  of  allegory.  For  each  Chris- 
tian saint  as  for  each  Pagan  deity 
there  are  ready-made  attributes^  and 


Hy  permission  of  R.  C.  Vosc 


Stella   Maris 

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h  rom  a  Copley  Print  published  by  Curtis  &  Cameron 


Death 


symbolism  is  emphatically  a  dead  lan- 
guage. This  age  assuredly  has  ac- 
quired some  new  thoughts  and  emo- 
tions, some  new  ideals  and  aspirations, 
and  it  is  the  business  of  the  symbolist 
to  find  fit  terms  for  their  expression. 
Regarded  rightly,  I  think  there  is  no 
higher  field  for  the  effort  of  the  mod- 
ern painter  and  sculptor  than  symbol- 
ism, and  I  feel  strongly  that  Emerson 
was  quite  right  in  saying  that  art  must 
put  itself  abreast  with  the  most  potent 
influences  of  the  world.  Not  the 
least  of  our  obligations  to  Miss  Ma- 
comber, therefore,  is  that  which  is  due 
to  the  absolute  departure  she  has 
made  from  the  worn-out  symboHsm  of 
the  past,  to  the  courage  and  conviction 
with    which    she    has    invented    and 

282 


thought  out  original  and  modern  pic- 
torial conceptions,  such  as  *'Love 
Awakening  Memory,"  "Memory  Com- 
forting Sorrow,"  "Night  and  Her 
Daughter  Sleep,"  and  "The  Hour  of 
Grace."  Those  who  have  never  had 
to  confront  the  problem  of  finding  new 
motives  for  pictures,  especially  for 
pictures  of  this  special  class,  can  have 
but  little  idea  of  the  extreme  difficulty 
of  imagining  anything  which  has  not 
already  been  used.  These  themes  of 
Miss  Macomber's,  however,  are  new 
in  pictorial  art;  not  only  as  themes, 
but  as  to  the  point  of  view  occupied 
by  the  artist  towards  them,  and  her 
manner  of  embodying  them. 

Moreover,  it  seems  to  me  that  these 
l)ictures  could  not  have  been  the  work 


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Collection  of  Wm.  H.  Lincoln 


The  Hour  of  Grace 


of  a  man;  the  mind  that  shaped  these 
symbols  was  essentially  feminine; 
there  is  many  a  touch  of  tenderness 
and  grace  and  refinement  that  pro- 
claims the  sex  of  the  artist.  This  is 
as  it  should  be,  I  think.  The  emotion- 
al part  of  art,  which  is,  of  course,  the 
greater  part,  must  be  marked  by  the 
peculiar  psychological  traits  belonging 
to  the  artist ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that,  whatever  may  be  true  of  the  in- 
tellect, the  soul  of  the  woman  is  of  a 
different  order  still  from  that  of  the 
man.  Thus,  in  order  to  reach  her 
highest  possibilities,  the  woman  artist 
must  employ  with  perfect  freedom 
those  feelings,  instincts  and  aspira- 
tions which  are  most  exclusively  the 
possession  of  her  own  sex,  which  most 


widely  differentiate  it,  spiritually,  from 
the  other.  Whenever  women  have 
failed  to  do  this  in  art  they  have 
proved  to  be  but  indifferent  competi- 
tors with  men,  for  they  have  folded 
their  wings,  and  preferred  to  walk, 
rather  than  fly ;  and  they  cannot  walk 
so  far  as  men. 

I  shall  only  try  to  trace  such  bio- 
graphical outlines  here  as  may  help 
to  throw  some  light  upon  the  develop- 
ment and  fashioning  of  Miss  Macomb- 
er's  art, — an  art  which  nothing  in  her 
antecedents,  history  or  environment 
fully  accounts  for.  She  has  had,  so 
far,  the  distinction  of  remaining  in 
America,  but  there  are  hundreds  of 
travellers  who  have  spent  years  in 
Italy  and  Holland,  yet  who  could  not 

283 


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An  Easter  Carol 


understand  Fra  Angelico  and  Rem- 
brandt as  does  she.  Born  at  Fall 
River,  Mass.,  August  21,  1861,  that 
year  of  storm  and  stress,  Mary  L. 
Macomber  is  a  descendant  both  of  the 
Pilgrims  and  the  Quakers.  The  in- 
tense earnestness  and  sincerity  of  the 
religion  of  these  good  people  had  no 
place  in  its  scheme  for  mere  beauty, 
which  was  mistakenly  thought  to  be 
an  appanage  of  the  Kvil  One.  None 
of  her  ancestors  were  in  any  way  in- 
terested in  art.  As  a  child  she  was  al- 
ways drawing,  but  she  had  absolutely 
no  knowledge  concerning  art  or  art- 
ists. She  began  to  study  painting 
when  she  was  about  nineteen  years  old, 
her  first  teacher  being  R.  S.  Dunning, 
a  Fall  River  painter,  whose  special- 
ties were  fruit  and  flower  pieces.  Her 
first  essays  naturally  were  in  the  same 
284 


province.  Mr.  Dunning  was  a  good 
teacher.  After  studying  with  him  for 
about  three  years,  Miss  Macomber 
went  to  Boston  and  entered  the  excel- 
lent School  of  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  where  she  took  up  the  study  of 
figure  painting,  but  in  the  second  year 
of  her  course  here  her  health  failed, 
and  for  three  years  she  was  unable 
to  continue  her  studies.  Later  she  was 
able  to  resume  work  for  a  short  time 
under  the  direction  of  Frank  Duven- 
eck;  and  still  later,  about  1898,  she 
made  a  radical  change  in  her  method 
of  painting  by  the  explicit  advice  of 
Frank  W.  Benson,  a  change  produc- 
tive of  such  marked  results  in  style 
that  in  the  enumeration  of  her  works 
it  will  be  logical  and  necessary  to 
divide  her  productions  distinctly  in 
two  periods  or  styles.     The  first  pic- 


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Love's  Lament 


tnre  publicly  exhibited  by  Miss 
Macomber  was  entitled  "Ruth/*  and 
it  was  shown  at  the  National  Acad- 
emy of  Design  in  the  fall  of  1889. 
Ever  since  that  date  she  has  been  a 
constant  and  unwearying  exhibitor  in 
all  the  leading  exhibitions  of  pictures 
in  the  United  States. 

As  the  list  of  her  honors  is  absurdly 
small,  I  shall  beg  leave  to  consider  it 
only  the  beginning  of  what  will  be  an 
impressive  category.  She  received  a 
bronze  medal  from  the  Massachusetts 
Charitable  Mechanics  Association  in 
1895 ;  a  bronze  medal  from  the  Cotton 
States  and  International  Exposition  at 
Atlanta  in  1895;  the  Dodge  prize  at 
the  National  Academy  of  Design  in 
1897;  and  an  honorable  mention  at 
the  Carnegie  Institute,  Pittsburgh,  Pa., 
1901.  No  less  than  four  of  her  paint- 
ings were  exhibited  at  the  National 
Academy  in   1890,  namely,  "Mnemo- 


syne," "Morning  (llories,"  "The  Puri- 
fication of  Mary,"  and  "A  P'lower  of 
Summer."  In  1891  she  exhibited  at 
the  National  Academy  "Forsaken," 
"Thoughts,"  "Lot's  Wife,"  and  "Ma- 
ternity." Of  these  four  works,  three 
were  subsequently  exhibited  at  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy  of  the  Fine 
Arts,  Philadelphia,  and  two  at  the 
Boston  Art  club.  Her  contributions 
to  the  National  Academy  in  1892, 
were  three  in  number, — "St.  Cecilia," 
"Love  Awakening  Memory,"  and  "A 
Magdalene."  The  same  year  she  sent 
to  the  Society  of  American  Artists  ex- 
hibition in  New  York  "The  Annuncia- 
tion." In  1893,  two  of  the  foregoing 
works  were  sent  to  the  World's  Fair 
in  Chicago, — the  "Annunciation"  and 
"Love  Awakening  Memory."  Of 
these  two  pictures  I  wrote  in  the  New 
England  Magazine  at  that  time  that 
they  were  among  the  most  remarkable 


285 


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The  Magdalen 


Collection  of  Roland  C.  Lincoln 


contributions  of  New  England  art; 
that  the  artist's  inspiration  appeared 
to  have  been  as  fresh,  genuine  and  un- 
sought as  could  be  desired;  and  that 
the  pure  and  delicate  hamiony  of  the 
color  invested  the  painter's  gracious 
conceptions  vi^ith  a  perfectly  congenial 
envelope. 

The  ''St.  Cecilia"  was  shown  at  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy  exhibition  of 
i895-'96;  and  the  "Magdalene"  was 
exhibited,  after  its  first  appearance  in 
New  York,  in  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  Boston,  the  Art  Institute  of  Chi- 
cago, and  the  Holbein  exhibition,  New 
York.  In  1893,  Miss  Macomber  sent 
to  the  National  Academy  ''Spring 
Opening  the  Gate  to  Love,"  one  of  her 
most  characteristic  ideal  conceptions, 
and  "Love's  Lament."  The  latter 
work  has  subsequently  been  seen  at 
the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  in  Boston, 
the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago,  and 
the  Providence  Art  Club.  In  1894  her 
National    Academy    pictures    were   a 

286 


"Madonna"  and  "Care  at  the  Gates  of 
Sleep."  The  former  work  afterwards 
went  the  rounds  of  four  cities,  Boston, 
Qiicago,  Nashville  and  Worcester, 
winning  golden  opinions  everywhere. 
"Faith,  Hope  and  Love,"  a  most  wel- 
come trio,  first  exhibited  at  the  Na- 
tional Academy  in  1895,  went  to  the 
fair  of  the  Massachusetts  Charitable 
Mechanics  Association  in  the  fall  of 
the  same  year,  and  was  then  hung  in 
the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts,  Boston,  for 
nearly  two  years.  This  year  of  1895 
was  prolific  in  work.  "The  song  of  Sol- 
omon" made  its  first  appearance  at  the 
exhibition  of  the  Society  of  American 
Artists; "The  Cup  of  Cold  Water" was 
shown  at  the  National  Academy  and 
"Hail  Thou  That  Art  Highly  Favored" 
was  exhibited  at  the  Boston  Art  Club. 
"The  Song  of  Solomon"  was  exhibited 
later  at  the  Atlanta  exhibition,  and 
"Hail  Thou  That  Art  Highly  Favored" 
went  to  the  Society  of  American  Art- 
ists exhibition  of  1896. 


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MISS  MACOMBER'S  PAINTINGS 


287 


In  1896  Miss  Macomber  sent  to  the 
National  Academy,  "The  Mother" 
and  "Temperance."  To  the  Boston 
Art  Qub  she  sent  "Mary  Virgin." 
To  the  Art  Institute  of  Oiicago  she 
sent  "St.  Catherine."  "Temperance" 
reappeared  at  the  Jordan  Art  Gallery 
in  Boston  in  1897;  "Mary  Virgin" 
went  to  the  Society  of  American  Art- 
ists exhibition  of  1897;  and  "St. 
Catherine"  was  successively  exhibited 
at  the  Pennsylvania  Academy  of  1896- 
'97,  the  National  Academy  of  1897, 
and  in  the  Museimi  of  Fine  Arts,  Bos- 
ton, 1897.  "Hope,"  which  was  first 
exhibited  at  the  Boston  Art  Club  in 
i896-'97,  afterwards  went  to  the  So- 
ciety of  American  Artists  and  the  Art 
Institute  of  Chicago.  "An  Instru- 
ment of  Many  Strings"  was  first 
shown  at  the  National  Academy  of 
1897,  and  later  appeared  in  exhibitions 
in  Philadelphia  and  Worcester. 

This  brings  us  to  the  close  of  the 
first  period  of  which  we  have  spoken. 
In  1898,  by  Mr.  Benson's  advice.  Miss 
Macomber  b^^n  to  stand  up  while  at 
work  instead  of  sitting.  It  was  an 
experiment,  the  outcome  of  which  was 
not  long  in  doubt.  Contrary  to  her 
own  apprehension,  the  change  of  posi- 
tion, with  its  greater  freedom  of 
movement,  its  greater  opportunity  for 
a  change  of  focus,  was  less  fatiguing, 
after  a  little  while,  than  the  former 
attitude  had  been ;  at  the  same  time  it 
brought  about  the  radical  broadening 
of  her  style  which  was,  probably,  due 
chiefly  to  the  longer  range  vision  of 
her  own  work  in  all  its  stages.  The 
first  painting  produced  after  this  time 
was  "The  Hour  Glass,"  which  was  ex- 
hibited at  the  Society  of  American 
Artists  in  1900.  This  work  sub- 
sequently went  to  the  Worcester  Art 


Museum,  1900;  the  Boston  Art  Club, 
1900;  the  Cincinnati  Art  Museum, 
1 901 ;  the  Carnegie  Institute,  Pitts- 
burgh, 1901 ;  the  Providence  Art  Qub, 
1902 ;  and  the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago, 
1902.  "The  Lace  Jabot,"  which  made 
its  first  appearance  also  in  1900  at  the 
Society  of  American  Artists,  was  a 
portrait  of  the  artist  herself.  It  was 
shown  later  at  the  Worcester  Art 
Museum,  the  New  Gallery  in  Boston, 
and  the  Art  Institute  of  Chicago.  "In 
Green  and  Blue"  was  first  exhibited  at 
the  Philadelphia  Art  Club  in  1900; 
and  it  was  seen  subsequently  in  the 
exhibitions  of  the  Boston  Art  Club 
and  the  Society  of  American  Artists. 
"Fides,"  first  shown  in  the  Art  Insti- 
tute of  Chicago,  1900,  afterwards  went 
to  the  Carnegie  Institute  at  Pitts- 
burgh and  the  Society  of  American 
Artists,  1902.  "Music,"  first  seen  at 
the  National  Academy  exhibition  of 
i900-'oi,  later  appeared  at  several 
other  exhibitions,  including  the  Pan- 
American  Exposition  at  Buffalo, 
1 901,  the  Pennsylvania  Academy 
exhibition,  1902,  this  being  the  first 
work  by  Miss  Macomber  shown 
abroad. 

"The  Hat  with  the  Buckle"  was  ex- 
hibited at  the  Society  of  American 
Artists  in  1901,  and  afterwards  went 
to  the  Worcester  Art  Museum  and  the 
Providence  Art  Club.  "Memory 
Comforting  Sorrow"  was  exhibited  at 
the  National  Academy  of  1902. 
"Night  and  Her  Daughter  Sleep," 
painted  to  fill  an  order,  was  exhibited 
at  the  first  exhibition  of  ideal  figure 
pictures,  held  at  the  National  Arts 
Club,  New  York,  1903.  This  is  one 
of  the  most  impressive  of  Miss  Ma- 
comber's  allegories.  The  majesty  of 
the  hooded  figure  of  Night  and  the 


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288 


WITH  A  PILLOW 


aspect  of  utterly  slumberous  uncon- 
sciousness in  the  passive  figure  of 
Sleep  are  extraordinarily  well  felt  and 
well  expressed.  "Death  and  the  Cap- 
tive" was  exhibited  at  the  Society  of 
American  Artists  in  1902,  and  after- 
wards appeared  in  the  exhibitions  of 
the  Worcester  Art  Museum,  the 
Copley  Society  of  Boston,  and  the 
Pennsylvania  Academy. 

Perhaps  the  richest  piece  of  decora- 
tive color  achieved  by  the  artist  is  to 
be  seen  in  the  exquisite  triptych  en- 
titled "The  Hour  of  Grace,"  painted 
in  1903.  In  color  Miss  Macomber  has 
made  consistent  and  steady  progress 
since  her  debut,  and  her  high-water- 
mark in  this  respect  is  attained  in  this 
superb  little  triptych.  The  last  ex- 
hibit sent  to  the  National  Academy 
was  a  pretty  conceit,  entitled  "Danc- 
ing Water,"  at  the  autumn  exhibition, 
i902-'o3,  but  it  was  unfinished  when  it 
was  shown.  The  list  of  her  works 
would  be  incomplete  without  a  men- 


tion of  "The  Magdalene,"  an  order,  in 
the  form  of  a  triptych;  the  "Easter 
Carol,"  another  order,  likewise  in  the 
form  of  a  triptych;  "Incense,"  an  or- 
der, 1903;  "The  Messenger,"  an  or- 
der, 1902;  "Purity,"  an  order,  in 
monochrome,  1902;  "The  Cup  Bear- 
er," 1903 ;  "Stella  Maris,"  i902-'o3 ;  a 
small  "Madonna,"  a  sketch  of  a 
"Head  of  Love;"  a  sketch  entitled, 
"The  Painter;"  "The  Reader;"  "The 
Virgin  of  the  Book;"  and  "Rosa." 
All  of  these  are  recent  productions. 
It  appears  quite  within  the  bounds  of 
likelihood  that  Miss  Macomber  has 
yet  to  paint  her  greatest  and  most 
moving  pictures ;  it  is  to  be  hoped  so ; 
experience  counts  for  so  much.  No 
one  can  know  her  work  without  feel- 
ing confident  that  she  will  continue  to 
grow  as  long  as  she  lives,  that  she 
will  always  give  us  her  very  best,  and 
that  we  have  every  right,  as  we  have 
every  reason,  to  look  for  still  higher 
and  lovelier  things  from  her. 


With  a  Pillow 

By  Agnes  Lee 

DOWN  sleep's  domain  of  cloudland  thin, 
Where  earthlings  fade  and  dreams  begin, 
O  mayst  thou  be  a  worthy  nest 
To  give  my  love  the  loveliest 
Of  sleep's  deserts  that  toil  can  win. 

Let  care  come  not,  nor  heart's  chagrin. 
Dead  unto  her  be  daytime's  din. 

Who  shall  be  rocked  upon  a  crest 
Down  sleep's  domain. 

Let  zephyrs  light  around  her  spin, 
Tell  her  whereon  my  lips  have  been, 

And,  when  her  head  the  flowers  hath  pressed. 

Be  thou  a  heart  of  rest,  of  rest, 
And  croon  her  sweetly,  softly  in, 
Down  sleep's  domain. 


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According  to  Counsel 


By  EmiUia  Elliott 


D 


RAKE'S  cottage"  stood  at 
the  lower  end  of  Long 
Bridge,  a  tiny  fenced-in  bit 
of  grass  separating  it  from 
the  winding,  dusty  road  that  turned 
just  below  to  cross  the  bridge,  from 
which  the  sleepy  improgressive  little 
village  took  its  name.  Behind  the 
low  vine-smothered  cottage  was  the 
garden;  a  quaint  old-fashioned  spot, 
filled  with  sweet-scented  English 
flowers,  and  bordered  at  the  foot  by 
the  quiet  tree-shaded  river.  Dolly, 
Drake's  wife,  thought  there  was  no 
other  garden  in  Long  Bridge  equal  to 
hers,  and  was  sure  that  nowhere  else 
did  the  river  murmur  so  softly,  or 
flow  so  lingeringly,  as  when  passing 
their  place. 

Dolly  was  a  plirnip,  tidy,  little  body, 
red-cheeked  and  dark-eyed — ^having  a 
reputation  for  good  nature  and  good 
housewifery,  which  two  do  not  al- 
ways go  together.  She  was  sitting 
on  the  front  porch  one  afternoon  in 
early  summer ;  it  was  time  for  Drake, 
and  while  she  knitted  busily  her  eyes 
kept  a  sharp  outlook  down  the  road, 
growing  shadowy  now,  as  the  sun 
dropped  behind  the  tall  trees  on  the 
western  side. 

"  Tim  he's  late  to-night,  eh,  puss  ?  " 
Dolly  said  to  the  big  Maltese  rubbing 
against  her  skirts — "He's  a-coming 
now,"  she  added  a  moment  later. 
"Who's  that  wi'  him?"  She  went 
down  to  the  gate,  closely  followed  by 
puss ;  who,  leaping  on  one  of  the  posts, 
stood  arching  her  back  and  waving 
her  tail  in  welcome. 


"  'Tis  none  o'  the  folks  round  here 
— Tim's  ter'ble  taken  up  wi'  him," 
Dolly  murmured,  eying  the  approach- 
ing figures  closely  —  Drake  short, 
slouching;  the  stranger  tall,  sleek, 
well-dressed  and  young. 

Tim  looked  up,  nodding  to  his  wife. 
"Yonder's  my  old  woman,  sir,"  he 
said  to  his  companion.  "There  baint 
her  like  in  Long  Bridge — ^nor  out  o' 
it,  I  be  bound." 

Instinctively  Dolly  shrank  from  the 
newcomer's  smile.  "You  be  late, 
Tim,"  she  said. 

"Dolly,  here  be  a  gentleman  come 
to  preach  to-night  on  the  green — I 
made  bold  to  ask  him  home  for  a  sup 
o'  tea." 

Dolly  opened  the  gate,  holding  out 
a  hand  hospitably.  "You'll  step  in, 
sir — ^and  not  mind  if  'tis  but  a  poor 
place." 

"A  charming  little  home,  sister.  It 
is  easy  to  see  that  Brother  Drake's 
praise  of  you  was  not  idly  spoken." 

Dolly  courtesied  respectfully.  She 
had  been  well  trained  in  her  youth  by 
the  ladies  at  the  Hall  and  prided  her- 
self on  knowing  her  duty  towards  her 
betters;  but  the  glibly  spoken  words 
gave  her  no  pleasure;  she  mistrusted 
this  smooth-tongued  stranger,  though 
she  would  have  been  puzzled  to  ex- 
plain why.  She  led  the  way  into  the 
cool,  low-ceilinged  kitchen;  the  kettle 
was  singing  over  the  fire,  the  cloth 
laid.  Dolly  brought  another  cup  and 
saucer  from  the  cupboard  on  the  wall, 
and  drew  a  third  rush-seated  chair  up 
to  the  table.    Drake  had  gone  through 


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to  the  pump  in  the  garden,  where  he 
was  splashing  vigorously. 

With  visible  pride  in  face  and  man- 
ner, Dolly  opened  the  door  of  the  bed- 
room beyond.  Its  spotless  order  and 
comfortable  arrangements  were  the 
delight  of  her  heart,  and  the  envy  of 
her  neighbors.  She  poured  fresh 
water  into  the  big  gaily  flowered  wash 
basin  and  pulled  forward  the  highly 
decorated  towel-rack,  with  its  sup- 
ply of  clean,  sweet-smelling  towels — 
"I  think  as  how  all's  to  your  comfort, 
sir,"  she  said  to  her  guest;  then  hur- 
ried to  cut  the  loaf  and  open  a  jar  of 
her  best  apricot  jam. 

Tim,  shining  of  face  and  smooth  of 
hair,  was  resting  by  the  open  window, 
looking  into  the  garden.  The  river's 
breeze  swayed  the  short  muslin  cur- 
tains and  filled  the  room  with  the 
scent  of  roses.  Overhead  the  canary 
chirped  and  fluttered  lazily,  in  no  wise 
disturbed  by  puss,  who,  from  her  mas- 
ter's knee,  sleepily  watched  the  bit  of 
yellow  fluff,  intended  by  Nature  as  a 
dainty  morsel  for  some  deserving  cat, 
but  prevented  from  fulfilling  its  right- 
ful destiny  by  those  stupid  human  be- 
ings. 

Tea  was  soon  ready — a  plain  home- 
ly meal,  but  one  evidently  to  the 
stranger's  taste.  His  appreciation  of  her 
fare  should  have  won  Dolly's  liking. 

"What  be  you  a  preacher  o'?"  she 
asked,  referring  to  Tim's  introductory 
words. 

"Of  the  Lord,  sister;"  the  answer 
was  given  with  much  unction. 

"Most  preachers  claim  to  be  that," 
Dolly  said  dryly.  "I  meant  was  you 
'Piscopal  or  Methody?  Tim  holds  wi' 
the  Methodys — I  was  brought  up 
reg'lar,  by  my  ladies.  I  was  under 
housemaid  at  the  Hall,  sir." 


"How  blessed  for  you  both  to  be 
able  to  meet  on  higher  and  truer 
ground;  to  come  into  the  joy  and  ful- 
ness of  the  Everlasting  Gospel ;  to  en- 
ter into  the  light  of  the  Latter  Dis- 
pensation." 

The  swift  out-rolling  of  the  words, 
the  involuntary  lifting  of  the  hands, 
as  if  in  blessing,  brought  a  look  of 
wondering  awe  to  Tim's  face.  He 
glanced  at  Dolly,  then  sighed. 
Dolly's  lips  were  compressed;  there 
was  no  answering  gleam  of  sympathy 
in  her  eyes. 

Tea  over  Tim  took  their  guest  out 
to  see  the  garden,  coming  back  him- 
self to  ask  anxiously — "You'll  be 
going  to  the  preaching,  Dolly?"  he 
jerked  his  thumb  in  the  direction  of 
the  fields  opposite.  "They  say  he  be  a 
rare  hand  at  the  preaching.  Over  to 
Middleford,  where  he's  been  biding, 
he's  made  a  heap  o'  converts." 

"Converts  to  what?  Tim  I  can't 
help  mistrusting  him;  I'd  like  it  bet- 
ter if  the  talking  didn't  come  so  easy 
to  him." 

"He's  been  taught, — Squire  talks 
just  as  easy." 

"It  sounds  dif'rent." 

"But  you'll  go,  Dolly?" 

She  shook  her  head,  beginning  to 
gather  up  the  tea  things.  "Tim,  don't 
you,  neither." 

"You're  acting  foolish,  woman." 

"Maybe  so,  Tim.  I'm  feared  o' 
him." 

Tim  laughed  scornfully.  "Well,  I 
baint,"  he  said,  returning  to  the  gar- 
den. 

''A  fair  night»  brother,"  the  stran- 
ger said.  His  deep  voice  made  Tim 
duck  his  head,  as  if  listening  to  a  bene- 
diction. 

"Aye,  'tis  fine,"  he  answered. 


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"But  do  you  never  weary  of  the 
flat  country — never  long  for  the 
hills?" 

"I  be  born  and  raised  in  Long 
Bridge,"  Tim  said  slowly.  "Me  and 
the  missus  went  to  Middleford,  for 
our  wedding  trip,  a  matter  of  fifteen 
odd  miles ;  that'll  be  twenty  years  ago, 
come  Michaelmas,  and  we  ain't  been 
so  far  since.  We  be  stay-at-home 
folks,  sir." 

"Then  you  can  know  nothing  of  the 
grandeur  of  the  mountains,  and,  in 
consequence,  must  fail  to  appreciate 
the  beautiful  imagery  of  so  many  of 
the  verses  of  the  Bible— *I  will  lift 
up  mine  eyes  unto  the  Hills,  from 
whence  cometh  my  help'  or  'As  the 
mountains  are  round  about  Jerusa- 
lem.' "  A  genuine  note  of  homesick- 
ness had  crept  into  the  speaker's  voice, 
making  it  sincere  and  natural.  Dolly 
coming  to  the  door,  felt  the  change  at 
once.  "There  be  hills  where  you've 
come  from,  I'd  say,  sir,"  she  said,  in 
more  friendly  fashion. 

"  *Zion  stands  with  hills  surrounded 
— ^beautiful  for  situation — the  joy  of 
the  whole  earth.'  You  are  right,  sis- 
ter, there  are  hills,  g^eat  tumbled 
snow-capped  peaks." 

Dolly  drew  a  deep  breath.  "Me  nor 
Tim  couldn't  even  dream  what  they'd 
be  like,  sir.  They  must  be  grand — 
but  sort  o'  terrifying." 

"Wouldn't  you  enjoy  seeing  them 
for  yourselves?" 

"We  baint  much  to  travel  round, 
sir.  Please  God,  we'll  bide  right  here 
'til  we  go  the  last  long  journey — eh, 
Tim?" 

Tim  nodded.  Dolly  was  talking  up 
fine  to  the  preacher.  She  was  un- 
common clever. 

"God    may    will    otherwise,"    the 


stranger  said  gravely.  "Brother 
Drake,  shall  we  go  now?" 

Dolly  threw  an  imploring  look  at 
Tim,  in  a  moment  all  her  doubts  re- 
turning. She  was  frightened  and  per- 
plexed, too,  by  that  last  suggestion, 
spoken  so  confidently.  "Bide  wi'  me, 
Tim,"  she  pleaded.  "You've  no  call  to 
be  losing  your  proper  rest,  staying  up 
past  time." 

"Sister,  do  not  seek  to  keep  him 
from  finding  the  true  rest — rather 
come  yourself  with  us,"  the  preacher 
said,  reprovingly. 

Dolly  shook  her  head. 

"Verily,  you  are  giving  the  adver- 
sary cause  to  rejoice.  Brother  Drake, 
we  may  not  delay  longer.  We  will 
pray  that  this  may  be  the  last  time 
Sister  Drake  bids  you  go  without  her." 

"Nay,  'tis  bidding  him  not  go  I  be," 
Dolly  declared  stoutly. 

Tim  followed,  bewildered  at  finding 
himself  acting  in  active  opposition  to 
his  wife;  but  even  her  influence  over 
him  was  less  strong  than  the  strange 
fascination  wielded  by  the  new 
preacher. 

Dolly  watched  the  two  go,  sadly  in- 
clined to  follow,  not  let  Tim  go  with- 
out her.  Only  the  knowledge  that  the 
stranger  would  attribute  her  yielding 
to  his  persuasions  held  her  back.  She 
stood  by  the  gate,  gazing  with  wist- 
ful eyes  as  they  crossed  the  road  and 
climbed  the  stile  into  the  field  oppo- 
site. At  the  further  end  lay  a  track 
of  open  common,  in  the  middle  of 
which  a  cart  had  been  drawn,  to  serve 
as  pulpit.  Towards  this  the  preacher, 
accompanied  by  Tim,  made  his  way. 
Already  a  considerable  number  were 
gathered  about  the  cart,  while  from 
all  directions  came  hurrying  groups. 
Dolly  noted  them  wonderingly.  Were 


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they  all  right,  she  only  wrong?  Had 
it  been  mere  foolish  obstinacy  on  her 
part?  Presently  through  the  quiet 
evening  came  the  sound  of  singing. 
The  words  she  could  not  catch,  the 
tune  had  a  swinging  rhythm  pleasing 
to  the  ear.  Now  the  preacher  was 
praying.  She  could  hear  the  terms: 
"Everlasting  Gospel,"  "Latter  Day 
Saints,"  "True  Prophet,"  the  same  ex- 
pressions recurring  again  and  again 
in  the  talk  that  followed.  Tall,  erect, 
arms  now  stretched  out  supplicat- 
ingly,  now  raised  threateningly,  the 
speaker  was  holding  his  audience 
spell-bound. 

Dolly,  herself,  standing  aloof,  criti- 
cal, suspicious,  did  not  altogether  es- 
cape the  strong  wave  of  excitement  in 
the  atmosphere.  Disturbed  and  op- 
pressed by  the  sense  of  something 
about  to  happen  she  went  back  to  the 
garden  behind  the  cottage ;  even  there, 
at  times,  the  preacher's  voice  intruded, 
breaking  the  stillness.  Back  and  forth 
beside  the  low  hedge,  edging  the  river, 
Dolly  walked,  restless  and  miserable. 
The  soft  breath  of  the  flowers,  the 
murmur  of  the  water,  the  clear  moon- 
light, had  no  power  to-night  to  soothe 
and  comfort.  The  time  seemed  end- 
less before  Tim — calling  "Dolly, 
Dolly,  where  be  you?" — came  to  find 
her.  There  was  a  look  of  exaltation 
on  his  round,  ruddy  face.  He  caught 
Dolly's  hand  awkwardly.  "  Tis  done — 
I  ha'  been  blessed  this  night,  woman." 
he  cried  his  usual  hesitating  speech  giv- 
ing place  to  more  rapid  utterance. 

"Tim,  whatever  do  you  mean?" 
Dolly  exclaimed. 

"I  ha*  been  blessed,  indeed,  I  ha' 
become  one  o'  the  elect.  Oh,  Dolly,  if 
you'd  a*  come  too,  and  found  the  same 
joy." 


"Tim,  I'm  fair  bewildered  wi'  you 
talking  so  quick." 

The  man's  shock  head  wagged 
proudly  as  his  carnal  self  gained  the 
upper  hand :  "Aye,  'tis  no  doubt  part 
o'  the  blessing,  a  sign,  mayhap,  as  I'm 
to  be  a  preadier.  You'd  be  proud  to 
ha'  your  man  a  preacher,  eh,  Dolly  ?" 

"Man,  are  you  clean  daft?  I'd 
rather  ha'  you  a  good  farm  hand  than 
a  poor  preacher,  and  you'd  ne'er  be 
aught  other.  This  comes  o*  taking  up 
wi'  strange  folks,  what  you  don't  even 
know  the  name  o',  nor  where  they're 
from." 

"That's  where  you  be  wrong, 
woman.  He's  Elder  Lawson,  a  mis- 
sion'ry  from  'Merica,  a  Mormon 
mission'ry." 

"I  ne'er  heard  tell  o'  that  kind.  And 
what  call  ha'  folks  in  'Merica  sending 
mission'ries  to  us?  'Tis  at  home 
they're  more  like  to  be  needed.  Do 
they  think  as  we're  heathens?"  Dol- 
ly's spirit  was  up.  America  was  but  a 
name  to  her,  her  ideas  concerning  it 
were  indefinite,  and,  on  the  whole,  far 
from  complimentary.  "You'll  not  de- 
mean yourself,  bothering  over  him, 
Tim?"  she  urged. 

"You  be  talking  worse  foolishness 
ev'ry  minute,  Dolly,  in  the  hardness  of 
your  heart." 

Dolly  gasped — she  to  be  called  hard- 
hearted I 

"Brother  Drake,"  called  the  Elder 
from  the  open  doorway,  "shall  we  not 
meet  together  in  prayer  and  thanks- 
giving, to  Almighty  God,  before  lying 
down  for  the  night  ?" 

"Come,"  Tim  said  to  Dolly. 

"Tim,  I  can't.  I  can't  say  amen  to 
any  prayer  o'  his,  the  Lord  forgive  me." 

"You've  need  to  add  that,"  Tim  said 
indignantly,  as  he  turned  away. 


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Dolly  glanced  beyond  him  to  the 
figure  in  the  doorway.  The  calm  res- 
olute face,  with  its  firmly  closed  lips 
and  cold,  compelling  eyes,  seemed  to 
her  at  that  instant  the  embodiment  of 
all  that  was  cruel  and  implacable. 

Dolly  stood  in  the  centre  of  the 
homely  little  kitchen  gazing  about  her 
with  strained  despairing  eyes.  Only 
three  weeks  ago  to-night  since  the 
missionary  came.  To-morrow  to 
leave  it  all,  the  old  home,  the  familiar 
fields,  the  quiet  river,  to  set  out  in 
middle  life  on  a  long,  perilous  journey 
to  a  dim  faraway  land,  strange,  un- 
known. She  moved  slowly  from  one 
bit  of  furniture  to  another.  "And 
Molly  Brown  such  a  slattern!  It's 
little  care  the  chairs  and  cupboards  will 
get  now,  and  they  my  mother's 
and  grandmother's  afore  me,"  she 
mourned.  There  were  no  tears  in  her 
hot  burning  eyes  now;  she  had  shed 
them  all  a  fortnight  since,  when  Tim 
first  broke  to  her  his  determination  to 
join  the  party  of  converts  leaving 
soon  for  America. 

She  had  given  little  credence  to  the 
stories  the  Elder  told  of  that  wonder- 
land of  promise,  to  which  they  were 
journeying.  A  land  where  none  need 
be  poor;  where  all  would  be  equal, 
where  life  in  richest  beauty  awaited 
all,  and  where  their  brethren  in  the 
true  faith  stood  with  outstretched 
hands  to  welcome  these  later  converts. 

"A  man'U  get  fair  chances  there, 
eh,  Dolly  ?"  Tim  said,  trying  to  com- 
fort her.  "We'll  be  fine  folks  yet." 
It  was  the  night  after  he  had  told  her 
and  they  were  sitting  on  a  bench  at 
the  foot  of  the  garden. 

Dolly  glanced  about  her  piteously. 
"I  can't  think  o'  you  and  me  like  that. 


Tim,  there  nor  anywheres.  I  can  and 
do  think  o*  us  as  homesick  and  a-weary 
for  the  old  place  where  we've  had 
plenty,  wi'  a  bit  to  spare  for  others." 

"You've  no  ambition,  woman,"  Tim 
protested,  and  he  said  it  often  during 
the  sad  days  that  followed.  He  was 
the  most  enthusiastic  of  the  new  con- 
verts. Silent,  awkward,  slow,  hither- 
to, there  was  a  strange  intoxication 
in  finding  himself  sought  out  by  the 
Elder,  listened  to,  consulted.  The 
missionary,  quick  at  reading  human 
nature,  handled  Tim  with  rare  skill. 
He  might  advance  in  that  wonderful 
far-off  Zion,  perhaps  come  to  be  in 
a  position  of  authority.  He  had  been 
too  long  under  a  woman's  domination, 
it  was  time  he  asserted  his  rights,  as 
head  of  his  own  house.  A  wife  should 
be  in  subjection  to  her  husband,  there 
was  scriptural  warrant  for  it.  Here 
at  home,  however! — ^the  Elder's  ges- 
ture of  the  hands  was  eloquent. 

All  the  obstinacy  and  self-will  of  a 
dull  nature,  which  under  Dolly's 
womanly  tact  had  lain  dormant,  sprang 
into  active  life.  As  Tim  grew  in 
gfrace  he  grew  also  in  what  his  wife, 
with  more  truth  than  politeness,  called 
— mulishness.  Not  all  her  tears,  per- 
suasions, reproaches  could  swerve  him 
one  moment  from  his  purpose.  With 
the  man's  desire  to  better  himself  was 
mingled  a  genuine,  though  fanatical, 
current  of  religious  feeling.  Against 
two  such  powerful  forces  Dolly  was 
helpless.  As  a  last  resource,  she  set 
aside  her  pride  and  called  in  the 
Squire  to  her  aid.  He,  blunt,  out- 
spoken, sincerely  sorry  at  losing  a 
faithful  laborer  and  reliable  tenant, 
did  more  harm  than  good  in  his  brief 
visit.  Dolly  sighed  to  think  her  ladies 
were  away  from  home.     Surely  Tim 


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must  have  listened  to  them.  He  set 
great  store  by  the  Squire's  ladies. 

Not  once  had  it  occurred  to  her  to 
let  him  go  without  her.  They  were 
man  and  wife — naught  but  death 
could  sever  that  bond. 

"But  I'm  not  a  Mormon — you'll 
mind  that,  Tim,"  she  reiterated  often. 
"  Tis  my  duty — a  hard  one — so  Vm 
going  wi'  you.  But  I'm  not  believing 
aught  o'  their  teachings." 

"You  will  some  time."  Tim  was 
confident  of  that  in  those  early  days. 
It  was  both  a  trouble  and  a  mortifica- 
tion to  him,  that  Dolly  so  steadfastly 
resisted  all  eflforts  to  bring  her  to 
reason.  Scant  reverence  she  paid  to 
his  own  recently  assumed  role  of  in- 
structor; toward  the  Elder  her  atti- 
tude was  one  of  mingled  fear  and  de- 
fiance. Brother  Drake's  cross,  in  hav- 
ing a  wife  so  wilfully  blind  to  the 
truth,  was  a  favorite  topic  of  conver- 
sation among  the  women  converts. 
They  found  a  most  unspiritual  zest  in 
discussing  poor  Dolly's  shortcomings. 
She  had  been  held  up  to  them  so  long 
as  a  pattern  wife  and  housekeeper. 
The  one  or  two  attempts  on  their  part 
to  convince  her  of  her  foolishness  soon 
ceased.  "  'Twas  a  waste  of  breath, 
Dolly  was  that  onreason'ble." 

It  was  in  the  soft  English  summer 
that  the  little  party  left  Long  Bridge. 
It  was  many  weary  months  later  that 
they  reached  Salt  Lake  City.  Elder 
Lawson  had  remained  behind  in  Eng- 
land. On  reaching  New  York  they, 
were  met  by  another  missionary,  hav- 
ing in  charge  a  similar  party  from  the 
north  of  England.  That  cruel  jour- 
ney overland,  across  the  great  plains, 
thinned  their  ranks.  The  memory  of 
those  awful  days  haunted  all  Dolly's 
after  life;  many  a  night  lying  sleep- 


less on  the  ground,  beneath  the  still 
star-bright  sky,  she  had  wondered 
why  God  had  let  such  a  thing,  unfore- 
seen, unescapeable,  come  into  their 
simple  peaceful  lives.  There  was  no  ir- 
reverence, nor  reproach  in  the  thought, 
only  a  confused  childlike  questioning. 

She  had  wondered,  too,  if  those 
worn-out  mothers  and  children,  to 
whom  death  had  come  as  a  blessed  re- 
lief, ere  the  hard  march  was  ended, 
had  found  the  answer  to  the  question. 
If  that  had  been  the  secret  of  the  smile 
on  their  tired  upturned  faces.  To 
them  the  close  of  the  journey  had 
come  suddenly,  unexpectedly,  but  not 
with  disappointment.  While  for  those 
left  behind!— 

"A  land  o'  promises, — o'  broken 
promises,"  was  Dolly's  verdict. 

Only  as  two  insignificant  units  of 
a  great  ever-increasing  number,  she 
and  Tim  found  themselves  regarded. 
Elder  Lawson's  oft-spoken  convictions 
concerning  Tim's  abilities  and  future 
were  evidently  not  shared  by  his  supe- 
riors at  headquarters.  In  time  Tim 
was  allotted  a  piece  of  farming  land 
outside  the  city's  limits,  and  at  forty 
years  bidden  to  begin  life  over  again. 

In  her  relief  at  getting  away  from 
the  miserable  lodging,  where  they  had 
found  scant  shelter,  Dolly  was  ready 
to  face  almost  any  hardships.  She 
even  helped  in  the  building  of  the  lit- 
tle cabin;  bravely,  uncomplainingly, 
she  did  her  share,  grieving  most  of  all 
over  the  change  in  Tim.  Throughout 
the  long  journey  he  had  kept  up  his 
courage  determinedly,  feeding  his  am- 
bition and  his  faith  at  one  and  the 
same  time  by  thoughts  of  what  the  end 
would  bring.  Then  had  come  the 
slow  sure  blow  to  all  his  hopes.  He 
grew  silent  and  sore;  his  brief  period 


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of  enthusiasm  giving  place  to  a  dull, 
dogged  endurance  that  would  not  own 
itself  defeated.  One  of  the  staunch- 
est  upholders  of  the  faith,  he  grew 
to  be  considered,  by  those  who  could 
not  read  below  the  surface,  though 
slow  and  ignorant,  perhaps,  as  most 
of  the  rank  and  file  were.  But  deep 
down  in  the  man's  heart  was  the 
knowledge  that  he  had  been  wronged, 
falsely  played  with;  scarcely  to  him- 
self did  Tim  admit  this,  but  it  tinged 
his  whole  life.  Gradually  he  gave  up 
all  idea  of  Dolly's  conversion,  and  as 
gradually  there  gfrew  within  him  a 
feeling  of  resentment  towards  her. 
Not  all  her  patience,  her  courage  and 
willing  helpfulness  could  bridge  the 
ever-widening  gulf  between  them. 
Tim  began  to  blame  her  in  part  for 
the  failure  of  his  ambitions :  "Nat'ral- 
ly  a  man  who  couldn't  bring  his  own 
wife  to  hear  reason  wasn't  likely  to  be 
looked  up  to  by  outsiders." 

The  weeks  became  months,  the 
months  years — years  of  struggle  and 
deprivation  for  them  both,  of  loneli- 
ness and  despair  for  Dolly  at  least. 
She  and  Tim  grew  old  before  their 
time;  with  bent  figures  and  tired 
work-worn  faces.  No  laughter  bub- 
bled up  in  Dolly's  dark  eyes  now,  her 
lips  had  lost  their  cheerful  curves. 
Tim  never  referred  to  Long  Bridge, 
nor  the  old  happy  life,  and  after  a 
while  Dolly  gave  up  speaking  of  them 
to  him.  She  never  reproached  him 
for  breaking  up  their  home,  what  was 
the  use? — the  matter  was  past  mend- 
ing now.  Never  had  her  heart  left  off 
aching  for  the  little  cottage,  the  well- 
kept  garden,  the  wide  meadows,  the 
winding  lanes  and  green  hedgerows, 
aboveallfortheriver.  She  heard  the  so  ft 
lap,  lap  of  the  water  in  her  dreams  some- 


times, and  the  old  glad  smile  came  for 
the  moment  to  the  drawn,  faded  lips. 

"Ten  years  it's  come  to  be  since  we 
left  it,"  she  thought  one  night,  stand- 
ing in  the  cabin  doorway.  She  was 
so  tired  of  this  great  dry  dusty  land ; 
tired  of  the  mountains — those  cruel 
relentless  mountains,  towering  above 
her,  representing  in  outward  tangible 
form  the  inexorable  fate,  holding  her 
captive  here,  far  from  the  land  of  her 
desire.  She  looked  wearily  up  at 
them  now,  glowing  in  all  the  majesty 
of  their  sunset  beauty.  "  'Tis  an  awe- 
some sight,"  she  whispered,  shivering 
in  the  keen  late  September  air,  "too 
awesome  for  a  body  like  me." 

The  sunset  light  falling  athwart  the 
massive  tumbled  peaks  in  the  south- 
east had  changed  them  from  snow 
white  to  rose.  Across  the  southern 
sky  stretched  vivid  dashes  of  crimson 
and  purple,  while  long  slant  lines  of 
flame  seemed  setting  the  western 
clouds  afire.  The  superabundance  of 
color  depressed  Dolly,  longing  for  the 
quiet  golden-lighted  river,  with  its 
clear  restful  skies,  and  she  turned  sad- 
ly indoors.  The  low  two-roomed  cot- 
tage was  very  different  from  the  cot- 
tage at  home;  there  were  few  com- 
forts, it  was  close  and  insufficiently 
lighted.  Dolly  had  done  her  best  to 
give  it  a  home-like  air.  The  larger, 
more  comfortable  house,  to  be  built 
some  day,  had  never  materialized ;  she 
had  given  up  wishing  for  it  now. 

In  front  of  the  cabin  was  a  tiny  gar- 
den in  memory  of  Long  Bridge;  be- 
yond on  every  side  lay  the  farm  fields, 
beyond  these  the  mountains.  How 
Dolly  longed  to  push  them  back,  back. 
She  drew  the  curtains  now,  glad  to 
shut  them  out  for  the  night,  and  be- 
gan to  get  supper. 


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"Dolly,"  Tim  said  that  evening, 
breaking  the  silence  abruptly,  "I've 
decided  to  build  a  room  on  t'other  side 
o'  this." 

"A  sitting-room?"  Dolly  asked  ea- 
gerly. 

Tim  puflfed  at  his  pipe  nervously. 
"Not  'xactly." 

"A  sleeping-room  ?"  Her  thoughts 
went  back  to  the  one  at  home;  Molly 
Brown  would  'a'  broken  the  china 
long  ago,  no  doubt. 

^'Sort  o'  combination  o'  both,"  Tim 
answered.  "I  mean  to  throw  out  a 
bow-windy,  like  you've  planned,  it's  a 
pretty  view  from  that  side,  and  run  a 
porch  long  the  front  to  meet  this,  wi' 
a  door  opening  onto  it." 

"You've  planned  it  fine." 

Tim  moved  uneasily.  Dolly  dropped 
her  work  suddenly  and  leaning  for- 
ward looked  steadily  at  him. 

"If  you've  got  anything  to  say,  say 
it,"  he  said  gruffly. 

She  could  not  put  into  words  the 
fear  clutching  at  her  heart.  For 
years  it  had  lain  there,  now  active, 
now  lulled  into  temporary  quietude. 
A  fear  too  terrible  to  be  named,  too 
degrading  to  put  into  form,  even  in 
her  thoughts. 

"Tim,  you'll  ne'er  break  your  sol- 
emn promise  to  me!"  She  held  out 
her  hands  beseechingly. 

Tim  frowned,  a  conscious  look  in 
his  eyes:  "A  bad  promise  is  better 
broken  nor  kept,"  he  stammered. 

The  color  left  Dolly's  face,  her 
hands  dropped  nerveless. 

Tim  sprang  up.  "What  ails  you, 
woman  ?" 

"Tim,  what's  in  your  mind  to 
do?" 

"Do  go  to  bed  and  get  rid  o'  your 
whims  and  fancies." 


"Is't  only  that,  Tim,  say  'tis  only 
that!" 

"I'll  say  nothing,  only  the  Itunberll 
be  here  to-morrow ;  Steve  Porter's  got 
the  job." 

"Why  didn't  you  tell  me  before?" 

"Wasn't  any  need." 

Dolly  watched  the  work  on  the  new 
room  from  day  to  day  with  sinking 
heart.  The  long- wished- for  bow  win- 
dow, the  wide  fireplace,  the  deeper, 
more  sheltered  porch,  though  all  as 
she  had  planned  herself,  brought  no 
thoughts  of  pleasure;  and  when  the 
room  was  finished  and  the  rubbish 
cleared  away,  Dolly,  standing  in  the 
window  recess,  could  not  see  the  view 
for  the  tears  in  her  eyes. 

Tim  was  coming  towards  her,  'cross 
lots,  walking  more  briskly  than  was 
his  wont;  catching  sight  of  Dolly  he 
turned  off  to  the  barn,  dropping  his 
liead  in  the  old  way.  Dolly  went 
slowly  back  to  the  kitchen.  Tim  was 
long  in  coming  in  that  evening,  she 
had  to  blow  the  horn  for  him  twice. 
He  went  out  again  as  soon  as  supper 
was  over,  a  little  later  Dolly  heard 
him  in  the  new  room,  talking  to  some 
one.  After  awhile  he  came  round  the 
house  to  the  kitchen  door,  followed  by 
a  tall,  rosy-faced,  round-eyed  girl  of 
seventeen. 

It  was  Hilda  Jonson,  the  oldest 
child  of  the  nearest  neighbor.  Dolly 
had  rather  liked  the  girl,  she  had  told 
her  many  a  story  of  the  old  life  in 
England  and  given  her  many  a  sorely 
needed  lesson  in  housewifery,  Hilda's 
mother  being  both  overburdened  with 
children  and  shiftless  by  nature  and 
lack  of  training.  There  was  nothing  un- 
usual in  the  fact  that  Hilda  had  come 
to  see  the  new  room.  Life  was  drearily 
monotonous  in  that  lonely  locality. 


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"How  do  you  like  it?"  Dolly  asked, 
trying  to  hide  her  own  lack  of  appre- 
ciation. 

"I  think  it's  fine/'  Hilda  spoke 
hesitatingly,  a  note  of  pride  in  her 
voice.  She  colored  hotly,  laughing 
self-consciously.  Dolly  felt  a  sudden 
shock.     Could  it  be  that ! 

"Good  night.  Mis'  Drake,"  the  girl 
said,  "I  must  be  going." 

Tim  came  forward.  "It's  too  dark 
for  you  to  go  alone,"  he  said,  taking 
her  arm. 

Hilda  giggled  foolishly.  "Good 
tiight"  she  called  again  to  Dolly. 

Dolly  answered  mechanically;  she 
staggered  to  a  chair  just  inside  the 
door,  her  hands  clenched  tightly; 
hours  afterwards  her  palms  still  bore 
the  print  of  the  finger  nails. 

It  was  nearly  an  hour  before  Tim 
came  home.  Dolly  had  not  moved. 
He  pushed  by  her,  grumbling  at  the 
darkness  of  the  room;  it  was  cold, 
too;  what  had  possessed  her  to  sit 
there,  with  the  door  open  that  way? 
He  lit  the  lamp  and  started  up  the  fire. 
"Come  closer  to  the  heat,  woman,"  he 
said;  "you  be  fairly  shaking  wi'  the 
cold." 

"Not  wi'  cold,"  Dolly  said  hoarsely, 
"wi'  shame." 

She  stood  up,  supporting  herself  by 
the  table,  her  head  raised,  her  face 
white  and  set.  It  made  Tim  shudder 
involuntarily. 

"Be  you  sick?"  he  cried. 

"Tim,  what  be  you  planning  to  do?" 

"You  be  mighty  fond  o'  asking  that 
question." 

"This  time  I'll  ha'  a  true  answer." 

"  'Tisn't  becoming,  talking  so  to 
your  husband." 

"Answer  me,  Tim,"  Dolly  com- 
manded fiercely.    Tim  felt  that  it  was 


a  conmiand;  he  felt,  too,  compelled  to 
heed  it. 

"I  reckon  you  know,"  he  said  sul- 
lenly. 

Dolly  tried  to  speak,  but  for  a  mo- 
ment the  words  would  not  come ;  when 
they  did,  their  slow,  clear  falling 
breaking  the  tense  stillness  of  the 
room,  awed  Tim  into  unwilling  si- 
lence. 

"  *Wilt  thou  love  her,  comfort  her, 
honor  her,  keep  thee  only  unto  her  so 
long  as  ye  both  shall  live  ?' "  There 
was  no  faltering  in  their  rendering, 
Dolly  knew  them  too  well,  had  repeat- 
ed them  too  often  these  years,  for  her 
own  reassuring.  It  had  seemed  im- 
possible that  when  it  came  to  the  point 
Tim  could  deliberately  set  aside  their 
solemn  reminder. 

He  rallied  determinedly.  "I  was 
feared  you'd  take  it  hard,  Dolly,  else 
I'd  'a'  told  you  sooner.  'Tis  no  use 
talking,  you'll  try  to  be  reason'ble, 
won't  you,  Dolly?" 

"  'And  forsaking  all  others,  keep 
thee  only  unto  her,  so  long  as  ye  both 
shall  live?'"  Dolly  repeated  slowly. 

Tim  grew  desperate,  there  was 
something  almost  uncanny  in  the 
whole  scene — Dolly's  really  tragic 
face  and  manner,  her  slow  voice,  with 
the  new  note,  as  of  heartbreak,  in  it, 
the  quiet  room.  He  shook  himself 
impatiently. 

"No  more  play  acting,"  he  cried, 
"those  old  teachings  be  naught  to  me. 
That  I've  held  by  you  so  long  's  to  my 
credit  and  soft-heartedness." 

The  reproach,  the  misery,  in  Dolly's 
eyes!  But  Tim  was  resolved  to  do 
the  thing  thoroughly  at  last. 

"  'Cording  to  the  teachings  o'  my 
church  you  ain't" — it  was  hard  to  sav 
— "you  ain't  my  wife.     I  was  married 


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to  you  by  a  Gentile,  whilst  a  Gentile 
myself  and  living  'mongst  Gentiles. 
The  boy  and  girl,  if  they'd  'a'  lived, 
wouldn'tVe  been" — again  he  halted — 
"wouldn't've  been  'gitimate,  'less  IM 
chose  to  make  'em  so." 

"I  used  to  wonder  why  God  took 
'em.     Now  I  am  glad." 

Tim  sighed.  "It's  been  hard  on 
me,  struggling  'gainst  ev'rything,  in  a 
strange  land,  and  not  having  harmony 
in  my  home.  I'm  not  saying  but  what 
you've  worked  real  hard,  and  done 
your  best  in  some  things,  but  we've 
been  out  o'  sympathy.  I've  bore  wi' 
you  long  and  patient.  I've  prayed  in 
season  and  out  o'  season  that  the  Lord 
would  open  your  eyes  to  the  truth." 
Tim  stopped,  out  of  breath. 

"You  promised  me,  on  your  word 
o'  honor,  when  we  first  came  and 
found  out  what  wicked  things  was 
taught  here,  you  gave  me  your  word 
you'd  ne'er  shame  yourself  nor  me 
so,"  Dolly  said  unflinchingly.  "You've 
said  some  awful  things  to  me  this 
night,  things  as  it  seems  even  the  an- 
gels' singing  itself  could  never  keep 
from  sounding  over  and  over  in  my 
heart.  You'll  not  make  it  worse  by 
doing  what  you've  planned  ?" 

Tim  shook  his  head.  As- well  try 
to  reason  with  an  obstinate  child. 

"I  tell  you,  Dolly,  it's  got  to  be. 
I'm  acting  'cording  to  counsel.  I'll 
own  I  rebelled  at  first,"  his  voice  soft- 
ened; "I  give  you  my  word,  Dolly,  1 
didn't  give  in  easy,  but  I  was  brought 
to  see  the  error  o'  my  ways.  I've  got 
to  obey  them  in  authority.  You'll 
not  make  it  hard  for  me,  Dolly. 
You'll  be  kind  to  Hildy,  she's  naught 
but  a  child ;  it  came  sort  o'  hard  to  her 
at  first,  she's  getting  used  to  it ;  you'll 
get  used  to  it,  too,  Dolly." 


The  pitiful  inadequateness  of  the 
words  was  apparent  even  to  Tim. 

Dolly  turned  away.  Further  strug- 
gle was  useless;  that  which  she  had 
been  fearing  for  nearly  ten  years  had 
come  to  pass.  When  Tim  tried  the 
door  of  the  bedroom  later  it  was 
locked.  After  that  Dolly  never  en- 
tered the  new  room ;  nothing  was  said 
about  the  furnishing  of  it,  and  for  a 
week  or  so  it  stood  empty.  Hilda 
did  not  come  over  again.  Tim  went 
there  sometimes  of  an  evening. 
One  afternoon  in  the  latter  part  of 
October  he  went  into  town,  taking 
the  big  farm  wagon.  He  was  late 
getting  back.  Dolly  had  had  her 
supper  and  put  his  to  keep  warm. 
At  last  she  heard  him  drive  in,  stop- 
ping at  the  new  room  door.  Then 
came  the  sound  of  furniture  being 
carried  in. 

"I  certainly  be  tired,"  Tim  said 
when  he  came  out  to  supper. 

Dolly  made  no  answer.  She  had 
grown  strangely  silent  the  past  weeks. 

"You're  enough  to  provoke  a  saint, 
woman,  al'ays  sulking,"  Tim  declared. 

Dolly  looked  up  from  her  knitting. 
"I'll  not  be  troubling  you  long;  there's 
no  call  for  me  to  stay  here  and  be 
slighted  beyond  the  power  o'  flesh  and 
blood  to  stand ;  I've  got  a  bit  o'  money 
saved  up  from  my  eggs  and  butter, 
and  now  the  railroad's  come  I  can  get 
away." 

"Where  was  you  calc'lating  to  go, — 
home?"  Tim  asked  quietly. 

"I'd  ne'er  ha*  heart  to  go  home 
now,"  Dolly  said  sorrowfully.  "Any- 
where away  from  this  fearful  place  '1! 
do." 

A  cruel  light  showed  in  Tim's  eyes. 
*'How  much've  you  saved?"  he  asked. 

Something  in  his  voice  roused  Dol- 


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ly's  suspicions.  She  hurried  to  the 
chest  where  she  kept  her  savings. 
Before  her  horrified  frightened  eyes, 
as  she  came  quickly  back,  Tim's  owii 
dropped. 

"It's  gone,  my  bit  o'  money's 
gone !  Tim,  you  could  ne'er  ha'  taken 
it?" 

"  'Twas  mine's  well  as  yours.  I 
waited  for  you  to  oflfer  it  friendly  like. 
You  knew  I  couldn't  build  and  furnish 
too.    Whatever's  yours  's  mine." 

"That's  only  talk,— you  know  it. 
You're  just  a  common — " 

"Woman!"  ^ 

"I  can't  say  the  word.  Yoti'll  give 
it  back,  Tim?" 

He  motioned  towards  the  new 
room.  "I  used  it  all  this  afternoon. 
So  there's  no  use  bothering  any  more 
about  it.  I  had  to  take  it  on  the  sly,  I 
tell  you,  you  be  so  onreason'ble." 

Dolly  came  nearer.  "Ten  years 
ago,  Tim  Blake,  you  was  an  honest. 
God-fearing  man,  a  bit  slow,  may  be, 
and  more'n  a  bit  obstinate,  but  that 
was  the  worst  could  be  said.  To- 
night you're  a — liar,  a  h)rpocrite  and  a 
thief — God  forgive  me  for  talking  so 
— and  you're  planning  to  be  something 
worse'n  all.  I  ain't  the  only  woman, 
neither,  who's  been  treated  so — de- 
ceived, tricked — in  this  cruel  wicked 
way,  in  this  cruel  wicked  country." 

Under  the  sharp  stinging  lash  of 
Dolly's  words,  Tim's  assertiveness 
disappeared.  Short  of  stature,  old 
before  his  time,  shame-faced,  cowed, 
he  stood  before  her,  a  poor,  insignifi- 
cant figure,  seeing  himself,  for  once, 
as  one  woman  had  come  to  see  him. 
Only  a  moment,  then  in  a  frenzy  of 
rage  he  sprang  forward.  "If  you  was 
a  man,  I'd  drive  those  words  back 
down   your  throat."    He   raised   his 


hand  threateningly.  Dolly  did  not 
shrink.  "Put  down  your  hand,  Tim 
Blake,  you'll  ne'er  lay  it  on  me." 
Then  suddenly  the  whole  figure 
dropped.  "Oh,  Tim,  Tim,  to  think  it 
should  ha'  come  to  this  'twixt  you  and 
me, — and  we  counted  such  a  lucky 
couple  that  Michaelmas  day." 

Two  weeks  later  Tim  brought  his 
new  wife  home. 

Dolly  made  no  further  protest.  She 
never  spoke  sharply,  nor  unkindly,  to 
Hilda;  she  would  have  pitied  the  girl 
for  her  false  position  had  she  seemed 
in  need  of  pity.  But  to  Hilda  the  sit- 
uation was  perfectly  right  and  natu- 
ral. She  had  objected  at  first  to  mar- 
rying an  old  and  comparatively  poor 
man,  that  was  all.  She  was  a  good- 
natured  girl  in  the  main,  commonplace 
and  unintelligent,  with  no  power  of 
grasping  any  of  the  finer  things  of 
life.  Dolly  had  always  been  friendly 
and  sociable  and  Hilda  had  not  looked 
for  any  difference  in  her  manner. 
This  new  silent  Dolly,  seldom  speak- 
ing, never  smiling;  this  little  bowed 
woman,  moving  listlessly  about  the 
house,  soon  became  a  constant  re- 
proach to  the  girl  and  to  Tim  as  well. 

"It's  's  if  I'd  done  her  wrong," 
Hilda  complained  one  evening,  when 
Tim  found  her  crying  in  the  new 
room.  "She  ain't  a  bit  like  she  used 
to  be." 

"Dolly's  got  notions.  She'll  come 
round  in  time,"  Tim  said,  with  no 
faith  in  his  own  assertion. 

"She's  never  set  foot  in  this  room 
since  I  came." 

"Well,  we  don't  want  her  here,  do 
we?"  Tim  made  an  awkward  at- 
tempt at  a  caress. 

"It  makes  me  feel  like  I've  stolen  it 
from  her." 


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"Don't  you  go  get  notiony,  too," 
Tim  protested. 

"I  feel's  if  rd  go  clean  distracted 
soon,  with  her  never  speaking,  nor 
nothing,"  Hilda  fretted. 

Tim  walked  briskly  out  into  the 
kitchen,  a  resolute  look  on  his  face. 
Dolly  sat  there  knitting. 

"See  here,"  he  began,  "you've  got 
to  treat  Hildy  more  human,  it's  a  liv- 
ing shame  the  way  you  act  to'ards 
her."  He  stood  a  moment,  as  if  wait- 
ing for  the  answer  that  he  felt  in- 
stinctively would  not  come.  "My 
gracious,  Dolly  1"  he  exclaimed, 
"you've  changed  wonderful.  It's 
enough  to  send  a  man  crazy,  being 
bothered  so  wi'  his  women, — one 
sulky,  t'other  fretty." 

It  was  not  a  happy  winter  for  any 
of  the  little  household.  Tim's  feeble 
liking  for  his  young  wife  soon  flick- 
ered out.  Hilda,  untrained,  undis- 
ciplined, lost  her  childish  good  nature 
imder  these  new  and  trying  condi- 
tions ;  she  grew  fretful  and  querulous, 
developing  a  tendency  for  visiting 
around  amongst  the  few  neighbors, 
and  Tim  knew  that  the  unsatisfactory 
state  of  aflfairs  in  his  home  was  the 
ever  fresh  subject  of  her  conversation. 
He  felt  Dolly's  deepening  scorn  for  the 
new  wife,  and  chafed  under  it ;  but  Hilda 
paid  no  heed  to  his  remonstrances. 

"I  like  to  go  where  I'm  wanted," 
she  declared  sullenly  one  night,  "I 
ain't  wanted  here,  and  never  was. 
What  place've  I  got  in  my  own  home? 
I'm  set  aside  completely  by  that  cross 
old  DoUy." 

"You  shall  ha'  your  place,  mind 
you  fill  it,"  Tim  said  sternly.  He 
strode  out  to  the  kitchen,  followed  by 
Hilda,  half  glad,  half  dismayed,  at  the 
crisis  she  had  evoked. 


"Dolly,"  Tim  cried,  "HUda's  saying: 
you  be  al'ays  putting  her  aside  in  the 
house,  and  I  guess  it's  true.  You've 
got  to  let  her  take  her  right  place,  and 
have  her  share  in  the  running  o' 
things." 

Dolly  was  sewing, — she  still  looked 
after  Tim's  mending, — the  habits  of 
thirty  years  growth  are  hard  to  kill. 
Now  she  laid  the  unfinished  shirt 
down  and  taking  off  her  thimble, 
pushed  the  work  basket  from  her. 
She  said  nothing,  those  simple  actions 
spoke  for  her.  Tim  turned  tmeasily 
to  Hilda,  he  felt  an  ang^  desire  to 
give  her  a  good  shaking.  "You  go 
ahead,  and  let's  ha'  no  more  talk  o' 
not  being  wanted." 

Hilda  glanced  triumphantly  at  Dol- 
ly, from  whose  hands  the  reins  of 
government  had  been  snatched.  "I 
feel  more  to  home  already,"  she  said. 
In  her  first  desire  to  assert  herself 
and  keep  Dolly  down,  Hilda  grasped 
greedily  at  even  the  simplest  tasks. 
Dolly  took  to  staying  in  her  own  room, 
setting  up  housekeeping  there  on  a 
limited  scale.  At  first  Tim  and  Hilda 
felt  her  withdrawal  a  positive  relief; 
then  Hilda,  indolent  by  nature,  b^;an 
to  tire  of  the  housework,  for  which 
she  displayed  little  aptitude.  Tim,  long 
accustomed  to  Dolly's  skilful  manage- 
ment, found  the  new  order  of  things 
hard  to  endure.  Hilda  met  all  his 
complaints  with  indifference.  He  had 
better  put  Dolly  at  the  work  again, 
she  seemed  to  enjoy  slaving  herself  to 
death.  Tim,  realizing  the  futility  of 
any  such  effort,  was  obliged  to  throw 
himself  into  the  breach. 

Dolly,  drawing  more  and  more  into 
herself,  was  scarcely  conscious  of  the 
course  things  were  taking.  Her 
thoughts  were  always  in  the  past  now ; 


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301 


in  her  eyes  was  a  strange,  far-away 
look.  Hilda  said  she  was  getting 
queerer  every  day,  and  never  knew 
what  went  on  about  her.  Once  or 
twice  she  tried  to  draw  her  back  into 
the  family  circle,  not  entirely  from 
selfish  motives,  but  Dolly,  if  she  un- 
derstood, paid  no  heed  to  the  girl's 
entreaties.  She  spent  most  of  her 
time  knitting  by  the  window  in  her 
room,  not  seeing  the  mountains  any 
longer — rather,  by  some  later  power, 
able  to  pass  beyond  them.  And  day 
by  day  a  peaceful,  restful  look  stole 
over  the  patient  face,  the  lines  about 
the  mouth  relaxed.  It  was  an  open 
winter;  day  after  day  the  sun  shone 
clear  and  radiant  from  out  the  cloud- 
less sky,  only  the  mountains  were 
snow  covered.  It  was  very  still  in 
that  tiny  bedroom ;  Dolly,  drifting  far- 
ther every  hour  out  on  the  wide  sea 
of  eternity,  by  degrees  forgot  the  aw- 
ful loneliness,  forgot  more  and  more 
the  present,  only  dimly  now  and 
then  thought  of  the  future,  and  then 
with  no  disturbing  of  her  quiet  con- 
tent, living  only  in  the  past. 

Beyond  the  low  doorway  were  dis- 
comfort and  discontent ;  a  man's  harsh 
tones,  a  girl's  peevish  ones.  Tim 
often  glanced  longingly  towards  that 
closed  door.  He  had  never  passed  it, 
since  the  night  Dolly  locked  it  against 
him.  One  morning,  coming  in  from 
the  bam,  the  now  familiar  aspect  of 
the  slovenly,  untidy  kitchen  struck  him 
with  fresh  vividness;  Hilda  had  run 
over  on  some  fancied  errand  to  her 
mother's,  the  breakfast  table  un- 
cleared, the  fire  out,  the  stove  cold 
and  greasy,  chairs  stood  about  in  con- 
fusion, the  closet  door  open,  showing 
the  disgraceful  condition  of  the  shelves 
within.    Tim's  face  darkened,  remem- 


bering the  homely  comfort  of  the 
place  under  Dolly's  reign. 

In  the  new  room  things  were  not 
much  better ;  Hilda's  awe  of  its  splen- 
dors had  long  since  vanished,  and  with 
it  her  care  of  them.  Tim  looked 
around  forlornly;  he  was  tired  and 
had  a  headache,  he  had  to  rest  some- 
wheres.  He'd  go  sit  with  Dolly,  may- 
be she'd  rouse  up  and  give  things  a 
straightening,  when  she  saw  how  un- 
comfortable he  was. 

He  tried  her  door,  calling,  "Dolly, 
Dolly,  it's  Tim,  I  want  you." 

There  was  no  answer,  and  after  a 
second  trial,  he  opened  the  door  and 
went  in.  Dolly  sat  as  usual  by  the 
window,  her  knitting  on  her  lap,  her 
hands  folded  idly.  A  bright  fire 
burned  in  the  fireplace,  the  room  was 
warm  and  cosy.  Tim  glanced  about 
it  gratefully,  thinking  suddenly  of  the 
cottage  kitchen  at  Long  Bridge.  The 
kettle  was  singing  busily  over  the  fire, 
on  the  table  stood  Dolly's  teapot  and 
cup  and  saucer.  She  looked  up  a  lit- 
tle bewilderedly  as  Tim  entered,  then 
turned  again  to  the  window. 

"Hilda  won't  be  home  this  hour  or 
more,"  Tim  said,  drawing  a  chair  up 
to  the  fire.  "You  and  me'll  ha'  a 
soci'ble  bit  o'  time  to  ourselves,  eh, 
Dolly?" 

She  looked  puzzled.  "Who's  Hil- 
da? I  don't  mind  anybody  o'  that 
name  in  the  village." 

Tim  started.  "You're  thinking  o' 
home,  Dolly,  and  forgetting  where 
you  be,"  he  said  hurriedly. 

"But  I  be  at  home,  baint  I  Tim?" 
she  cried  anxiously. 

Tim  hesitated,  uncertain  what  to 
say. 

Dolly  leaned  forward.  "O'  course 
I  be;  don't  you  hear  the  river?     Tt 


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sounds  prettier'n  ever  to-day.  You 
mind  how  we  used  to  go  down  it  o'  a 
summer  night.  I've  al'ays  thought  as 
how  dying  would  be  like  that,  just 
drifting  along  slow  and  pleasant  like, 
and  the  birds  singing  and  the  flowers 
nodding  to  you  along  the  banks." 

Tim  caught  the  quiet  hands  in  his 
rough  ones.  "Dolly,  be  you  sick? 
What  ails  you,  Dolly?  Think  where 
you  be, — ^here  in  'Merica." 

But  his  effort  to  recall  the  poor 
troubled  mind  from  its  wandering 
amidst  happy  scenes  was  mercifully 
unsuccessful. 

Dolly's  smile  did  not  fade;  she 
nodded  contentedly.  "Aye,  'tis  pret- 
ty to-day,  the  river ;  I'd  be  sad  to  die 
wi'out  the  sound  o'  it.  I'm  counting 
the  days  'til  I'll  be  stronger  and  can 
get  out  to  it." 

Tim  looked  about  him  in  troubled 
fashion.  Dolly  ought  to  have  a  doc- 
tor, but  he  couldn't  leave  her  alone. 
Why  didn't  Hilda  come  home. 

"Seems  like  when  they  sing  my 
verse  at  church  I  can  al'ays  feel  to 
understand  it,"  Dolly  said  slowly. 
Scarcely  raising  her  voice,  she  sang 
quaveringly : 

"  'Right  through   the  streets,  with   silver 
sound, 

The  living  waters  flow;* 

"It's  mighty  comforting  to  think 
there's  a  river  in  heaven,"  she  went 
on  ;  '*  I'm  sort  o'  glad  there  won't  be 
any  sea  any  more,  thinkin'  o'  the 
ocean  al'ays  seemed  to  terrify  me,  but 
a  river,  like  ours,  slow  and  safe  and 
wi'  the  little  children  coming  down  to 
play  by  it.  Our  Tim  and  little  Dolly 
was  al'ays  playing  by  the  river,  you 
mind,  Tim;  I've  often  thought  as  how 
it'd  been  lonesome  like  in  heaven  for 


'em,  if  there  hadn't  been  a  river  there 
too." 

Tim  could  stand  it  no  longer,  he 
went  out  to  look  for  Hilda.  There 
was  no  sign  of  her  and  he  wandered 
about  restlessly,  dreading  to  return  to 
Dolly,  yet  hardly  able  to  keep  away 
from  her.  At  last  he  went  in.  Doily 
was  leaning  back,  her  eyes  were 
closed. 

Tim  sprang  towards  her.  "Dolly, 
Dolly,  you  baint  going  to  leave  me, 
Dolly!" 

She  looked  up,  smiling  happily. 
"It's  so  easy,  like  I  said,  just  going 
wi'  the  river." 

He  knelt  beside  her,  stroking  her 
hand  with  shaking  fingers.  A  wild 
hot  cry  for  forgiveness  filled  his  whole 
being,  but  he  would  not  disturb  her 
peace,  nor  mar  this  blessed  forgetful- 
ness.  It  was  the  least  he  could  do 
now,  after  breaking  her  heart.  Not 
until  the  end  had  come  did  his  cry 
burst  forth:  "Dolly!  DoUy!  You 
forgive  me  now;  why  didn't  they 
leave  you  and  me  to  live  our  lives  to- 
gether in  peace,  back  there  at  home  ?*' 

He  would  not  let  them  lay  her  in 
the  new  room,  hastily  set  in  order  by 
Hilda  and  her  mother.  The  night  be- 
fore they  took  her  away  he  stole  softly 
in  to  kneel  beside  the  bed  where  she 
lay. 

"Dolly,"  he  cried,  answering  the 
look  of  sad  reproach  which  now  and 
for  the  rest  of  his  life  the  mute  face 
must  wear  for  him,  "I  had  to  do  it. 
I  acted  'cording  to  counsel,  from  first 
to  last.  You  understand  now,  eh 
Dolly?" 

God  forgive  the  ones  who  had  coun- 
selled him. 


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The  Old  Corner  Book-Store 

The  Famous  Literary  Land-mark  of  Boston,  and  the  Men 

Who  Met  There 


T 


^HE  threatened  live  long," 
says  the  proverb,  and  the 
ancient  edifice  at  the  north- 
em  comer  of  Washington 
and  School  Streets,  Boston,  not  only 
endured  unperturbed  a  century  of  the 
common  perils  of  natural  decay  and 
normal  casualty,  but  also  passed  un- 
scathed through  a  subsequent  four- 
score years  of  plans  and  purposes 
aimed  directly  against  its  integrity 
and  perpetuity,  and  was  long  in  yield- 
ing to  a  direct  doom  of  demolition. 
For  when  Mr.  T.  H.  Carter,  in  1827, 
sought  a  lease  of  the  estate  to  which  it 
l)elonged,  the  longest  term  he  could 
obtain  was  one  of  less  than  ten  years, 
and  the  succeeding  lessee,  Mr.  Wil- 
liam D.  Ticknor,  who  held  tenure  con- 
tinuously until  his  decease  in  1864, 
when  the  lease  passed  to  his  estate, 
could  only  get  renewals  of  from 
three  to  five  years  at  a  time. 

As  will  be  shown  later,  the 
utility  and  value  of  the  property 
for  leasehold  purposes  had  con- 
siderably increased,  and  the  les- 
see was  bound  to  pay  taxes  and 
make  repairs,  so  that  the  owners,  who 
were  many,  having  in  some  cases  life 
interests,  could  never  agree  upon  any 
plan  for  reconstruction  or  improve- 
ment, arguing  that  the  returns  from 
the  estate  as  it  stood  were  relatively 
greater  than  any  which  it  would  be 
likely  to  yield  after  the   expense  and 


loss  incident  to  alterations,  rebuilding 
and  some  term  of  inoccupancy  had  been 
provided  for.  The  tenants  might  ac- 
cordingly adjust  the  building  to  their 
own  needs  and  desires,  and  it  there- 
fore expressed  the  character  of  them 
and  their  business,  much  as  a  long- 
occupied  house  expresses  the  spirit 
and  habits  of  the  family  who  have 
lived  in  it  and  fitted  it  to  themselves. 
But  now  that  a  change  conform- 
able to  the  spirit  of  the  times  has 
been  brought  about,  and  the  familiar, 
historical,  and  in  some  sense  roman- 
tic, building  will  be  destroyed,  a 
rather  careful  sketch  of  its  appear- 
ances, life  and  times  should  be  ac- 
ceptable. For  in  its  destruction  there 
passes  away  an  edifice  which  has  been 
not  only  a  curious  and  interesting 
representative  of  the  architecture  and 
craftsmanship  of  two  hundred  years 
ago,  being  the  oldest  brick  building  in 
the  city,  but  also  a  significant  golden 
milestone  on  a  road  whereon  moved 
together  the  advance  of  literature  and 
the  progress  of  commercial  dignity 
and  equity  in  this  country.  For  here 
the  founder  of  a  publishing  house  es- 
tablished by  his  voluntary  act  the 
principle  that  an  author,  even  though 
a  foreigner,  had  a  right  to  partici- 
pate in  the  earnings  and  profits  of  his 
mind,  and  thus  made  his  business 
house,  not  indeed  the  richest  and 
most  powerful   of   America,   but   the 


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noblest,  justest  and  most  highly  es- 
teemed,— the  exemplar  which  others 
soon  came  to  follow  and  emulate, 
imtil  the  acceptance  of  its  policy  had 
become  virtually  universal  and  incor- 
porated in  international  law. 

As  the  building  was  erected  in  171 2 
to  replace  one  that  had  been  burned 
the  year  before,  it  is  evident  that  in 
the  course  of  nearly  two  centuries  it 
and  the  land  on  which  it  stood  must 
have  known  many  ownerships  and  oc- 
cupancies. But  as  it  has  been  used 
and  known  as  a  bookstore  for  almost 
a  hundred  years,  its  earher  conditions 
may  be  briefly  summed  up  and  atten- 
tion directed  mainly  to  the  period  fol- 
lowing the  establishment  of  the  first 
book-making  and  book-selling  busi- 
ness. During  its  first  century  the 
Old  Corner  estate  had  no  other  impor- 
tance than  attaches  to  any  household 
and  residential  property,  and  its 
modifications  and  transfers — care- 
fully digested  and  recorded  by  the  late 
Dr.  N.  B.  ShurtlefT,  once  mayor  of 
Boston— can  only  interest  the  anti- 
quarian or  the  searcher  of  titles.  The 
whole  tract  of  land,  then  extending 
along  School  Street  nearly  as  far  as 
304 


the  present  City  Hall  site,  to  where 
the  Niles  stable  was  and  the  Niles 
block  now  is,  and  for  quite  a  distance 
on  Washington  Street,  then  known  as 
Cornhill,  was  granted  about  1630  to 
William  Hutchinson,  who  took  pos- 
session of  it  in  September,  1634, 
when  he  arrived  from  England  with 
his  family.  He  was  prominent  in 
many  ways,  and  was  the  only  early 
possessor  for  whom  anything  like 
distinction  could  be  claimed.  The 
bold  and  radical  theological  attitude 
of  his  wife,  the  noted  Ann  Hutchin- 
son, caused  their  banishment  from 
the  colony,  and  the  estate  passed  in 
part,  after  some  transfers  within  the 
family,  to  one  Henry  Shrimpton,  who 
fenced  in  his  share  and  made  some 
improvements.  From  his  descendants 
it  passed  in  1707  to  the  apothecary 
Thomas  Crease,  who  put  up  the  build- 
ing that  is  the  subject  of  this  sketch. 
After  other  sales  and  gifts,  the  prop- 
erty was  brought  by  one  of  the  whirli- 
gig of  time's  revenges  back  to  de- 
scendants of  the  Hutchinsons,  whose 
re-entry  was  made  about  the  middle 
of  the  i8th  century.  Toward  the 
end  of  that  century   Edward   Sohier 


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THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


305 


and  his  wife  Susanna  (bom  Brimmer) 
became  the  owners,  succeeded  by  the 
widow  of  Henderson  Inches  and  by 
Herman  Brimmer,  since  when  the 
estate  has  been  in  possession  of  the 
Erimmer  and  Inches  families.  The 
neighborhood,  although  so  near  to 
the  residences  of  "the  quality"  and  to 
various  public  and  official  edifices, 
was  always  dedicated  to  trade,  many 


T.  H.  Carter,  from  an  Early  Pastel 


favorite  shops  and  offices  being  men- 
tioned as  occupying  adjacent  lots. 
The  savor  of  Mr.  Crease's  drug  store 
hung  long  about  these  particular 
premises,  the  last  apothecary  there 
having  been  Dr.  Samuel  Clarke 
(father  of  the  late  Rev.  Dr.  James 
Freeman  Clarke),  who  retained  his 
shop  and  residence  here  until  1828, 
when  the  character  of  the  place  was 
changed  for  a  finality. 

The  estate  as  ultimately  consoli- 
dated was  in  the  shape  of  an  inverted 
blockletterf"  .  The  end,  across  which 
stood  the  great  brick  house,  rested  on 
Washington  Street,  the  staff  ran  up 
along  School  Street,  and  the  bottom 
projected  inward  behind  the  main 
building  and  a  block  contiguous  to  it 
on  the  north.  The  buildings  con- 
sisted in  Dr.  Clarke's  time  of  the  Old 
Corner  one  containing  the  shop,  and 
a  western  extension  of  the  family 
quarters,  projecting  into  the  garden 
at  the  back  and  offering  the  real 
front  of  the  establishment. 

The  first  step  in  the  course  that  has 
made  the  Old  Corner  famous,  and 
has  known  no  vestigia  rctrorsum, 
was  taken  by  the  late  Timothy 
Harrington  Carter.  He  was  born  in 
1799  in  Lancaster,  Massachusetts,  a 
town  notable  not  more  for  its  natu- 
ral beauty  than  for  its  maintenance  of 
various  minor  manufactures,  and  of 
a  press  from  which  numerous  publi- 
cations, creditable  alike  for  matter 
and  manner,  were  issued.  Perhaps  a 
double  influence  from  his  birthplace 
prevailed  with  the  boy,  for  when  in 
181 5  he  came  to  Boston  to  seek  the 
fortune  which  later  years  richly  be- 
stowed upon  him,  he  found  employ- 
ment at  the  bookstore  of  Cummings 
and     HilHard,     at     the     corner     of 


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THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


The  Old  Corner,  as  Mr.  Carter  Left  It 

Washington  Street  and  Spring  Lane, 
where  such  business  was  continued 
until  the  time  of  James  Munroe  and 
Company,  about  fifty  years  ago. 
When  he  came  of  age  he  entered  the 
firm  as  a  partner,  and  took  the  entire 
management  of  the  business,  adding 
to  its  working  forces  such  young  men 
as  Gray,  Little  and  Wilkins,  subse- 
quently prominent  themselves,  en- 
larging its  scope  and  multiplying  its 
profits. 

In  1827,  Mr.  Carter,  having  made 
some  money  by  this  and  other  enter- 
prises, gave  a  year  to  study  at  home 
and  abroad,  and  on  his  return  to  Bos- 
ton set  about  organizing  a  new  book 
house,  meaning  to  be  only  a  silent 
partner,  and  planm'ng  what  would 
have  been  a  sort  of  publication  trust 
for  the  manufacture  and  sale  of 
books  too  costly  c>r  extensive  for 
single  firms  to  undertake.  But 
jealousy  and  fear  were  aroused,  and 
there  was  enough  trade  influence  with 
the  Legislature  to  obtain  the  insertion 
in  the  charter  of  an  innocent-looking 
clause,    which    was    eflfectually    pro- 


hibitive. Mr.  Carter  then  arranged 
a  partnership  with  a  younger  brother 
and  a  clerk  under  the  name  of  Carter, 
Hendee  and  Company,  and,  being  the 
capitalist,  set  about  procuring  a  busi- 
ness site.  He  chose  the  Old  Comer, 
which  Buckingham  says  had  already 
been  used  by  Mr.  Benjamin  Perkins 
for  a  year  or  so  as  a  bookstore,  but 
could  obtain  no  longer  term  of  lease 
than  six  and  a  half  years,  but  with  a 
verbal  agreement  to  restore  to  him  or 
pay  him  for  any  permanent  improve- 
ment. He  at  once  lowered  the  first 
floor  to  the  street  level  and  built  upon 
the  garden  the  block  which  ran  along 
School  Street  as  far  as  number  11, 
the  place  last  occupied  as  a  trunk 
shop.  In  the  rear  of  this  extension, 
concealed  by  it  and  known  to  compar- 
atively few  people,  he  also  set  up  a 
great  wooden  building,  which  he 
used  for  the  seven  presses  of  the 
printery,  in  which  he  was  concerned, 
for  he  engagcid  part  of  his  means  in 
type-founding,  printing,  and  other 
cognate  enterprises.  Those  presses, 
by  the  way,  although  eventually 
worked  by  steam,  were  run  at  first  by 
a  team  of  Canadian  horses.  But  Mr. 
(barter's  firm  was  not  alone  in  creat- 
ing thus  early  a  literary  atmosphere 
alxnit  the  place.  Mr.  Samuel  G. 
Goodrich,  afterwards  known  to  the 
world  as  *Teter  Parley,''  and  to  whose 
initiative  was  due  the  first  collection 
made  of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  fugi- 
tive writings,  occupied  as  author  and 
publisher  the  second  story  of  the  new 
School  Street  building,  while  the 
upper  story  had  an  associated  occu- 
pancy, being  used  as  a  printing  office 
by  Mr.  Isaac  R.  Butts,  w4io  eventu- 
ally took  on  authorship  as  the  shrewd 
and  trusty  compiler  of  various  legal 


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THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


307 


and  commercial  vade  mecums.  About 
this  time  and  later  the  front  upper 
story  was  possessed  by  a  skilful,  but 
irascible  and  not  always  punctual 
book-binder,  Mr.  Peter  Low. 

The  estate  was  paying  about  four- 
teen hundred  dollars  a  year  when  Mr. 
Carter  took  it;  but  when  the  owners 
refused  to  extend  his  lease  or  to  carry 
out  the  agreements  made  on  their  be- 
half on  account  of  his  improvements, 
it  was  rendering  about  four  thousand 
dollars,  and  was  in  such  a  condition 
that  it  was  always  afterwards  leased 
at  a  high  rent,  the  tenant  bearing  also 
taxes  and  other  charges,  thus  in- 
creasing handsomely  the  temporary 
and  permanent  vahic  of  the  estate  for 
the  benefit  of  owners  who  had  done 
nothing  to  earn  it.  Surely,  the  whole 
city  can  offer  no  stronger  illustration 
of  "the  unearned  increment"  than 
this, — a  mere  homestead  value  having 
g^rown  to  a  property  of  its  present 
magnitude  by  the  character  and  effort 
of  its  occupants,  its  owners  having  ex- 
pended neither  money,  care  nor  labor. 
The  disasters  that  befell  the  coun- 
try in  the  collapse  of  the  United 
States  bank  injured  the  business  and 
private  fortunes  of  Mr.  Carter,  but  still 
the  firm  was  so  prosperous  that  the 
retail  and  miscellaneous  publishing 
buisness  could  be  sold  in  1833  at  a 
g:oo(\  price  to  Messrs.  John  Allen  and 
William  Davis  Ticknor,  young  men 
with  whom  Mr.  Carter  associated 
himself  for  a  while  as  silent  partner 
and  adviser.  After  about  a  year  Mr. 
Allen,  who  seemed  not  to  be  thor- 
oughly adapted  for  the  business,  with- 
drew, and  Mr.  Ticknor  conducted  it 
alone  until  late  into  the  forties,  having 
established  himself  as  a  publisher 
from  the  very  start. 


And  now,  as  the  character  and 
trend  of  the  house's  affairs  were  es- 
tablished by  him,  and  as  its  publica- 
tions (in  spite  of  any  modifications  of 
the  lirm  name  upon  the  title  pages) 
were  known  in  the  trade  generally 
as  *'Ticknor's  books,"  something 
should  be  said  of  the  modest  but 
strong  and  positive  man  who  changed 
the  attitude  of  America  toward  the 
world  of  literature  by  an  act  which 
seemed  to  him  only  a  natural  proceed- 
ing from  normal  moral  and  mercan- 
tile impulses,  and  who  was  so  long 
as  he  lived  the  power  behind  the 
throne  of  his  house,  although  his  re- 
tiring, kindly  and  generous  nature 
always  waived  deference  toward  him- 
self and  preferred  the  praise  and  pro- 
motion of  his  associates. 

In  this  connection  will  be  found  in- 
teresting an  expression  of  Tennyson's 
own  views,  as  contained  in  a  letter 
written  to  one  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  sons, 
who  had  sent  him  congratulations  on 
reaching  his  eightieth  birthday,  and 
noting  that  the  poet  and  his  publisher 
were  born  on  the  same  day,  August 
6th,  although  a  year  apart. 

Mr.  Ticknor  was  born  in  181  o,  in 
Lebanon,  New  Hampshire,  and  came 
as  a  youth  to  Boston,  entering  at  once 
the  brokerage  business  of  an  uncle, 
and  conducting  it  successfully  for  a 
year  after  the  latter's  death,  then 
passing  into  the  Columbian  Bank, 
where  he  showed  such  financial  apt- 
itude and  ability  that  he  was  offered 
<i  permanent  official  connection.  But 
his  tastes  and  desires  were  for  higher 
things,  and,  like  his  cousin  George 
Ticknor,  he  hoped  to  do  something 
with  and  for  books.  But  while 
George  had  a  father,  rich  for  those 
times,  who  could  give  him   the  ad- 


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308 


THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


HtfltatTt. 


vantages  of  study  and  travel,  William 
was  a  simple  farmer's  son,  who  must 
make  his  own  way  and  earn  his  own 
ijetterment.  Pie  accordingly  under- 
took the  mercantile  ventures  already 
mentioned,  deviating  from  the  lines 
laid  down  by  Mr.  Carter  so  far  as  to 
prefer  belles-lettres,  science  and 
medicine  to  the  legal  literature  to 
which  that  gentleman  inclined.  One 
of  his  first  books  was  Mrs.  Norton's 
poems,  and  his  early  catalogues  in- 
clude many  important  volumes,  such 
as  ** Rejected  Addresses,"  ''The  Con- 
fessions of  an  Opium  Eater,"  initial 
volumes  of  Longfellow  and  Whittier, 
and  the  poems  of  Barry  Cornwall  and 
Robert  Browning,  which  last  he  con- 
tinued to  publish  long  after  it  was 
clear  that  they  would  yield  no  pecuni- 
ary profit.    The  sponsorship  for  these 


books,  dating  back  to  the  early  thir- 
ties, indicated  discrimination,  ambi- 
tion and  courage,  qualities  which  he 
always  manifested  and  were  particu- 
larly shown  when  he  introduced  to 
America  the  poems  of  Tennyson,  paying 
for  them  the  first  royalty  on  record, 
and  the  novels  of  Charles  Reade ;  and 
when  he  bought,  in  spite  of  the  dis- 
suasions of  his  partner's  discouraging 
letters  from  abroad,  the  Atlantic 
Monthly,  and  gave  for  it  a  price  which 
the  latter  thought  preposterous.  For 
Mr.  Fields,  although  he  was  subse- 
quently glad  of  all  the  advantages 
which  came  to  him  from  his  connec- 
tion with  that  magazine,  disbelieved 
in  it  at  first,  prognosticating  for  it 
such  an  unhappy  end  as  came  to 
Putnam's  and  other  propitiously 
started  periodicals.  His  warmest  en- 
dorsement of  the  purchase  was  when 
he  wrote  resignedly  that  the  best 
must  be  made  of  it,  and  it  is  only  fair 
to  say  that  he  did  his  part  with  right 
good  will. 

During  his  first  decade  Mr.  Tick- 


Win  iam  D.  TiCKNOR,  AT  Thirty 


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THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


309 


nor  extended  his  own  reading  and  his 
acquaintance,   increased  his  influence 
and  estimation,  and  established  rela- 
tions which  were    strong    bases    for 
the  future  house  as  it  was  developed, 
bein«^  valued   not    alone   as   a   sound 
merchant     and     financier,     a     good 
friend,  and  a  strong  man  in  the  Bap- 
tist  denomination,  but  also  as  clear, 
equitable  and  authoritative  in  his  lit- 
erary judgment.     He  was  a  director 
of  the  Boston   Lyceum,    treasurer   of 
the   American   Institute    of    Instruc- 
tion, a  trustee  of  the  Perkins  Insti- 
tute, and  a    leading    member   of   the 
school     committee     when     that     was 
composed    of    citizens    who    had    no 
thought    of   seeking  politics   or  pelf 
from  their  connection   with   it.     He 
had   great  personal  beaut}^,  easy  and 
elegant  manners,  and  a  sympathetic, 
ingratiating  and   confidence-inspiring 
disposition  which  soon  won  and  long 
retained     friendships.       Many     men 
whose  names  are   eminent   in    litera- 
ture were  younger  than  he,  and  came 
to    him    for    counsel    and    guidance, 
while  their  elders  often   relied  upon 
him  in  regard  to  writing  as  well  as 
printing  their  books.    Among  the  en- 
during  friendships  then   formed,  the 
most  notable  was  that  between  him 
and  Nathaniel  Hawthorne,  which  was 
almost  closer  than  that  of  brothers  in 
its  continuous  intimacy.  When  Presi- 
dent Pierce  appointed  Hawthorne  to 
the  consulate  at  Liverpool,  he  would 
not  enter  upon  it  unless  Mr.  Ticknor 
would  go  with  him  to  England  and 
settle  him  in  his  new  position,  and  after 
his  return  from  Europe,  his  frequent 
little  journeys  were  always  made  in 
company   with  Mr.  Ticknor,  and  he 
insisted  that   his    identity    should    be 
concealed  in   all   registers  under  the 


The  Old  Corner  Business  Card,  1838-45 

incognito  of  *'a  friend."  And  it  cannot 
be  forgotten  how  short  a  time  he 
survived  after  the  death  in  his  pres- 
ence of  Mr.  Ticknor  at  Philadelphia 
in  1864.  Hawthorne's  devotion  proves 
the  intellectual  and  spiritual  worth  of 
his  comrade.  Mr.  Carter  notes  in  his 
autobiography  that  it  was  customary 
during  the  early  part  of  the  last  cen- 
tury for  merchants  to  receive  into 
their  families  some  of  their  employees 
in  part  payment  for  their  services,  and 
that  he  had  at  first  forty  dollars  a 
year  and  his  board  for  his  work. 
Among  several  whom  Mr.  Ticknor 
had  at  this  time  in  his  home  in  Pinck- 
ney  Street  were  two  young  men  who 
afterwards  gave  the  best  accounts  of 
themselves, — ^James  T.  Fields,  of 
Portsmouth,  who  became,  thanks  to 
the  encouragement,  indulgence  and 
privilege  generally  accorded  him, 
]\Tr.  Ticknor's  partner,  and  a  promi- 
nent and  popular  man  in  literary  life, 
and  Thomas  Niles,  Jr.,  of  Boston, 
W'ho  was  in  time  the  chief  director 
of  the  house  of  Roberts  Brothers. 
Both  had  good  business  heads,  but 
Fields  had  so  alert  and  eager  a  mind 
and  such  power  of  assimilation  and 
cultivation,  that  as  he  grew  into 
young  manhood  and  profited  by  the 
advantages  at  his  disposal,  he  estab- 
lished himself  in  another  home  and 


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James  T.  Fields  in  Eaply  Life 


Thomas  Niles,  Jr. 


formed  a  coterie  of  friends ;  first 
among  whom  was  E.  P.  Whipple,  af- 
terward so  forcible,  influential  and 
much  sought  as  essayist,  critic  and 
lecturer.  \oung  Fields  was  so 
capable,  versatile,  ambitious  and  at- 
tractive, and  so  well  availed  himself 
of  every  commercial  and  social  op- 
portunity, that  early  in  the  forties 
^Tr.  Ticknor  took  him  into  partner- 
ship, together  with  Mr.  John  Reed, 
Jr.,  who  contributed  something  to 
the  house's  capital,  but  withdrew 
after  a  few  years.  The  legal  co- 
partnership was  always  William  D. 
Ticknor  and  Company,  and  Mr.  Tick- 
nor's  seniority  was  evidenced  by  his 
retaining  in  his  own  name  the  lease 
of  the  estate;  but  the  imprint  on  the 
house's  title-pages  show  at  this  time 
Ticknor,  Reed  and  Fields,  being  sub- 
sequently compressed  to  Ticknor  and 
Fields,  and  continuing  so  until  after 
Mr.  Ticknor's  death. 

Now  ensued  a  period  glorious  for 
310 


American  letters,  during  which  the 
Old  Corner  attracted  to  itself  the 
greatest  of  native  and  English  writ- 
ers, comparatively  few  Americans  of 
distinction  being  associated  with  any 
other  house.  The  sterling  worth,  the 
mercantile  dignity  and  sound  judg- 
ment of  Ticknor,  and  the  swift 
perception,  the  brilliancy  and  the  social 
charm  of  Fields,  gave  in  their  union 
power,  reliability,  vitality  and  genial- 
ity to  the  establishment,  and  the  Old 
Corner  became  the  constant  resort  of 
wits,  poets,  scientists,  pliilosophers, 
and  the  distinguished  of  all  profes- 
sions. 

Here  came  Rufus  Choate  to  explain 
the  hieroglyphic  memoranda  in  which 
he  set  down  the  names  of  the  books 
he  wanted  to  come  by  the  next 
*'boat,"  as  he  always  called  a  steam- 
ship. Here  came  Holmes,  to  say  hov^^ 
he  loved  to  practice  medicine  and 
teach  anatomy,  and  how  his  one  dif- 
ficulty was  not  to  pour  out  from  his 


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^., 


J 


/C 


6 


/7. 


•C^'  • 


Ruius  Choate's  Autograph  Order  for  a  Copy  of  the  "Golden  Legend*' 


stores  of  knowledge  faster  than  his 
pupils  could  absorb.  Here  Thack- 
eray towered  above  his  admirers  and 
told  gaily  of  his  American  experiences 
and  impressions,  none  the  less 
amused  because  the  point  of  his  story 
made  against  his  own  simplicity  or 
ignorance.  Like  Hawthorne,  he  was 
not  fond  of  bookish  topics,  did  not 
like  to  "talk  shop,"  and  was  more  in- 
terested in  mere  men  and  women 
than  in  authors,  caring  more  for  their 
humanity  than  their  composition. 
Here  Henry  Giles  scintillated  with 
such  brilliant  epigram  and  outlined 
his  thought  so  incisively  that  his  mis- 
shaped form  was  forgotten,  and 
\\'hittier's  "thee"  and  "thou"  greeted 
his  friends  shyly  and  tenderly.  Here 
were  seen  the  burly  figure  of  bluff 
Henry  Ward  Beecher,  and  the  slen- 
der form  of  his  gentle-mannered  sis- 
ter, Mrs.  Stowe,  the  sweet,  kindly  face 
of  Lucy  Larcom,  the  spiritual  counte- 
nance of  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  and 
the  round,  rosy,  beardless,  boyish  face 
of  Thomas  Starr  King,  and  here 
were  often  to  be  met  jovial  John 
G.  Saxe,  the  herculean,  whose  talent 


and  touch  assimilated  him  more  nearly 
than  any  other  American  to  Thomas 
Hood  in  fun  and  fancy,  and  bright- 
eyed  little  "Tom  Folio,"  with  a  bundle 
of  books  and  papers  clasped  in  his 
arms  under  his  short  cloak,  and  ever 
on  the  point  of  some  fine  literary  dis- 
covery, of  which  too  often  some  one 
with  whom  he  had  been  over  gener- 
ously confidential  gained  ultimately 
the  credit.  Here  the  great  men  of  the 
bar,  pulpit,  platform  and  university 
chair  exchanged  their  notions  of 
science,  ethics,  history,  poetry,  politics 
and  people,  and  Gliddon  discoursed  of 
Eg}'pt  and  the  latest  find  in  mum- 
mies :  here  Biscaccianti,  Kellogg,  Gary 
and  other  prime  donne  dropped  bits  of 
song;  Mrs.  Kemble,  Murdoch,  Mr. 
and  Mrs,  Barrow,  Warren,  Vanden- 
hoff,  Forrest,  Davenport  and  Brough- 
am scattered  the  bright  gossip  of  the 
stage,  and  Ole  Bull  talked  of  his 
northern  home  and  his  "leetle  yellow 
phiolin."  John  Leitch,  one  of  the 
great  Cunard  captains,  passed  most  of 
his  Boston  stays  reading  away  as  for 
dear  life  on  a  square,  green-topped 
stool  in  a  front  comer,  and  here  came 


3«t 


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Interior  of  the  Old  Corner 


the  village  clergyman  and  the  country 
doctor  yearly  to  replenish  their  libra- 
ries, depending  for  the  profitable  ex- 
penditure of  their  hard  savings  upon 
the  advice  of  the  clerks,  who  had  in 
their  turn  been  instructed,  ever  kindly 
and  helpfully,  by  the  theologians,  sur- 
geons and  doctors  who  were  daily 
visitors.  Here  came  the  "solid  men  of 
Boston"  to  enrich  their  libraries  with 
fine  sets  of  standard  authors  or  to  sub- 
scribe for  new  editions  of  Scott  or 
Dickens;  here,  too,  came  their  wives 
to  secure  the  latest  keepsakes  and  al- 
bums of  fashion,  and  sometimes  to  re- 
quest the  sending  to  their  houses  for 
inspection  of  some  illustrated  volumes 
which  occasionally  came  back  with 
traces  of  cake  and  coffee  on  their 
pages,  and  here  came  the  seekers  for 
big  Bibles  for  presentation  to  pulpit, 
or  at  weddings,   for  the  Old  Corner 

312 


kept  the  only  stock  of  Oxford  Bibles 
in  the  town. 

Lectures,  readings  and  many  con- 
certs depended  upon  the  interest  of 
the  Old  Corner  for  the  sale  of  their 
tickets,  as  the  opera  folk  were  wont  to 
rely  on  the  neigiiboring  shop  of  E.  H. 
Wade ;  and  it  should  be  added  that  in 
those  primitive  days,  when  a  lottery 
for  a  good  cause  was  thought  not 
wrong,  many  a  charity,  church  or 
library  looked  hither  for  an  agency  to 
dispense  its  tickets  even  to  distant 
places.  These  were  the  palmy  times 
of  the  old  New  England  lecture  sys- 
tem, when  the  cleverest,  strongest  and 
most  attractive  speakers  were  to  be 
had  almost  for  the  asking.  The  aver- 
age fee  for  a  lecturer  was  rarely  more 
than  ten  dollars,  but  a  poet  or  a  first- 
class  reader  got  five,  or  possibly  ten 
dollars    more.      Mr.    Ticknor's    long 


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THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


313 


William  D.  Ticknor,  at  Fifty 

connection  with  the  Boston  Lyceum 
and  the  Institute  of  Instruction  made 
the  store  a  headquarters  for  speakers 
and  for  committees,  and  many  a  win- 
ter course  was  arrang^ed  there. 

As  years  passed  the  Old  Corner  be- 
came in  the  right  sense  great,  and  the 
expansion  of  its  affairs  necessitated 
more  division  of  labor.  Mr.  Ticknor 
gave  more  attention  to  the  manufac- 
turing and  financing,  as  Mr.  Fields 
devoted  himself  more  to  the  literary 
relations.  But  the  two  partners  al- 
ways lived  and  worked  in  harmonious 
union,  and  every  enterprise  repre- 
sented a  real  concert  of  thought  and 
action.  Mr.  Ticknor  was  glad  to  de- 
volve upon  his  younger  associate  most 
of  the  social  and  hospitable  represen- 
tiftion,  which  the  joint  purse  of  the 
house  provided.  This,  however,  was 
beca^isc  of  his  retiring  disposition  and 
not  for  any  lack  of  social  tact  or 
charm.  When  the  house  began  its 
ultimately  long  list  of  entertainments, 


with  the  dinner  to  Charles  Mackay, 
and  the  following  one  to  Agassiz,  Mr. 
Ticknor  was  reluctant  to  take  the  head 
of  the  table,  but  occupied  it  with  grace 
and  felicity;  and  anoteof  Hawthorne's 
while  they  were  together  in  England 
thanks  him  for  responding  to  a  toast 
on  his  behalf  at  a  large  public  ban- 
quet. 

Returning  for  a  moment  to  the 
building  itself,  one  might  note  that  its 
external  appearance  was  somewhat 
changed  in  its  later  years.  There  was 
originally  a  corner  entrance  at  No.  i 
School  Street,  and  all  of  the  large 
windows,  of  which  the  two  on  the  side 
were  subsequently  bricked  up,  were 
barred.  The  interior,  however,  re- 
mained virtually  as  it  was.  The  main 
counters  ran  midway  and  at  the  sides 
from  front  to  back,  and  the  walls  were 
shelved,  glass  cases  being  on  the  north 
side  and  open  racks  opposite  to  them. 
It  was  on  the  south  side  that  the  event- 
ually enormous  Ditson  music  business 
began,  w^hen  Mr.  Oliver  Ditson  be- 
stowed his  entire  stock  there  on  a 
single  counter,  and  a   few   rows    of 


James  T.  Fields  in  His  Last  Years 

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314 


THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


shelves  behind  it.  Passing  from  the 
main  building:  into  the  extension,  one 
came  to  the  counting-room,  slightly 
raised  above  the  main  floor.  Here  Mr. 
Ticknor  had  his  desk,  at  the  end  of 
which  was  the  favorite  chair  in  which 
Hawthorne  spent  many  quiet,  observ- 
ant, reflective  hours. 

Beside  the  Washington  Street  door 
stood  a  tall,  slender  mirror  framed  in 
darkened  gilt,  which  had  come  down 
from  Dr.  Clarke's  time,  and  had  re- 
flected beauty,  grace,  charm  and  co- 
quetry, as  well  as  gravity,  stability  and 
philosophic  dignity.  The  upper  left- 
hand  corner,  looking  back  from  the 
front  entrance,  was  inclosed  with 
greeti  curtains,  behind  which  Mr. 
Fields  had  a  cosey  nook,  whose  broad 
window-scat  was  always  full  of  man- 
uscripts, new  books,  letters,  and  ele- 
gant trifles.  Here  there  was  always 
plenteous  company  of  the  best  and 
brightest  minds  of  the  time.  Had  any 
one  been  m  a  position  to  take  note  of 
the  conversation  there,  or  could  the  old 
walls  themselves  have  repeated  what 
they  had  heard  and  seen,  an  unrivalled 
table-book  of  wit,  wisdom,  personal 
description  and  anecdote  might  easily 
have  been  compiled.  But  at  this  late 
day  almost  nothing  can  be  recovered 
of  that  characteristic  and  evanescent 
chat.  It  was  merely  the  natural  and 
usual  talk  of  friends  and  habitues  and 
none  thought  to  record  and  save  it. 

The  long  School  Street  building 
contained  a  series  of  ground-floor 
shops,  which  were  consecutively  oc- 
cupied by  the  brother  and  sister  Cal- 
lender — he  with  the  poorest  eyes  and 
the  longest  nose,  and  she  with  the 
stateliest  cap  imaginable — who  sold 
toys,  knick-knacks,  indelible  ink,  and 
Kidder's  cordial;    Isaac  B.  Waitt,  a 


plump  and  merry  boot-maker,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  sequence  by  pleasant, 
generous  Mrs.  Abner  Haven,  whose 
coflFee-room  (kept  up  after  her  death 
by  her  hearty  sister,  Mrs.  Harrington) 
was  for  decades  a  famous  place  of  re- 
sort and  refreshment.  Originally 
patrons  had  the  use  only  of  one  large 
back  roo.ni,  lined  with  high,  hard, 
black,  slippery  hair-cloih  sofas,  and 
having  before  them  a  few  great, 
round,  mahogany- framed  and  marble- 
topped  tables.  As  custom  increased, 
a  staircase  was  built  to  the  second 
story  of  the  wooden  house  behind, 
and  the  refection  rooms  were  continued 
forward  to  the  room  over  the  shop. 
The  kitchen,  where  the  old  Italian 
cook  David,  whom  everybody  knew, 
presided,  was  also  in  that  house  and 
sent  its  viands  down  a  narrow 
arcliway  to  the  side  door  of  the  shop. 
Beside  the  usual  cakes,  candies  and 
ice-crcnnis  of  the  period,  Mrs.  Haven's 
was  famous  for  a  few  things  which 
can  no  longer  be  procured,  such  as 
perfect  toast,  a  peculiarly  rich,  tliick 
lemon  pie,  *'jumbles/'  shining  Brigh- 
ton biscuit,  Washington  pies,  "gib- 
raltars,"  plump  cream  cakes,  and  an 
exhilarating  boiled  coflFee,  which  was 
stispected  of  owing  something  of  its 
flavor  to  a  slight  infusion  of  brandy 
added  just  as  it  came  to  the  boil.  In 
time  a  few  cold  meats  were  added  to 
the  bill  of  fare,  and  such  simple  pro- 
vision sufficed  for  the  literarians, 
artists,  merchants  and  bankers  of  that 
day,  who  could  always  be  found  lunch- 
ing and  hob-nobbing  there  in  groups 
about  noontime,  or  possibly  about  the 
middle  of  the  afternoon,  having  per- 
haps adjourned  from  Mr.  Fields's 
sanctum  for  greater  privacy  and  free- 
dom from  social  interruption. 


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THE  OLD  CORNER  BOOKSTORE 


3lS 


In  the  second  story  of  this  block, 
Mr.  Goodrich  had  been  sircceeded  by 
the  brothers  Chamberlain,  makers  of 
scientific  and  philosophical  apparatus, 
and  especially  of  astronomical  and  elec- 
trical sets  for  school  and  academy  use 
(with  a  specialty  of  orreries),  as  they 
in  their  turn  gave  place  to  Cicchi  and 
Garcy,  who  were  pioneers  in  the  man- 
ufaccure  of  plaster  casts  and  images, 
bein*];-  the  predecessors  of  the  present 
widely-known  Caproni  firm  of  mould- 
ers. 


There  were  few  radical  changes  in 
occupancy  until  the  ever  augmenting 
business  of  Ticknor  and  Fields  re- 
quired for  its  storage  and  distribution 
purposes  all  the  space  that  had  been 
spared  for  tenants,  and  all  were  dis- 
missed except  the  hair-cutter,  who  re- 
mained in  the  corner  room  up  one 
flight,  which  seemed  to  belong  by  pre- 
scriptive right  to  his  profession,  hav- 
ing be.^.n.  used  for  many  years  by  a 
little  man  named  Dudley,  who  was 
scarcely  tall  enough  to  reach  the  dis- 


The  Last  Estate  of  the  Oid  Corner 


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GROUND  JUNIPER 


tinguished  crowns  which  had  a  predi- 
lection for  his  clipping. 

Soon  outgrowing  even  their  ex- 
tended premises,  Messrs.  Ticknor  and 
Fields  removed  to  124  Tremont  Street, 
where  a  building  had  been  commodi- 
ously  and  finely  arranged  for  their 
esi)crlal  use,  ?md  where  all  the  old  as- 
sociations and  characteristics  were 
perpetuated.  Their  general  retail 
business  was  relinquished  to  Messrs. 
E.  P.  Dtitton  and  Company,  with 
whom  was  associated  as  junior  partner 
Mr.  Giarles  A.  Clapp,  who  had  been 
for  some  time  the  head  of  that  de- 
partment. In  1869  this  firm  decided 
to  establish  itself  in  New  York,  and 
the  place  passed  to  Messrs.  A.  Wil- 
liams and  Company,  who  continued 
their  general  literature  and  periodical 
business  there  until  1883.     Some  suc- 


ceeding changes  resulted  in  the  as- 
sumption of  the  proprietorship  by 
Messrs.  Damrell,  Upham  and  Com- 
pany in  1887,  Mr.  Upham  becoming 
sole  proprietor  in  1896.  There  were 
during  those  last  years  no  noticeable 
changes  of  appearance  or  of  frequen- 
tation  except  that  a  cheap  luncheon  es- 
tablishment occupied  the  ground  floor 
of  the  corner  building  during  its  lat- 
est days.  The  new  building,  which 
will  undoubtedly  add  strength  and 
splendor  to  the  neighborhood,  may 
perhaps  perpetuate  senfimentally  in  its 
christening  the  name  of  the  Old 
Corner,  but  whether  any  of  its  occu- 
pants will  attempt  to  extend  its 
ancient  fame  and  charm,  may  not  yet 
even  be  guessed.  But  whatever  the 
future  may  hold  in  store,  its  past,  at 
least,  is  secure. 


Ground  Junioer 


By  John  Elliot  Bowman 


GROWTH  of  a  soil  outworn,  its  rugged  arm 
Is  flung  across  the  pasture's  lichens  gray, 

Where  tufts  of  scanty  herbage  scarce  repay 
The  patient  cropping  kine.     It  saves  from  harm 
The  song  birds*  nesting  place.    With   vague  alarm, 

We  view  our  lives,  that  front  accusing  day 
.   Like  barren  fields  outworn.     Ah,  humbly  pray 
That  still  the  sterile  soil  may  hold  a  charm 

Compelling  growth  of  hardy  branch  that  yields 
Rude  berries,  with  a  fragrance  all  their  own ; 
And  refuge  gives  to  creatures  of  the  wold, 
Perchance  to  birds,  that,  as  their  wings  unfold. 

May  sing  their  message  over  fertile  fields. 
And  so,  in  part,  for  barren  soil  atone. 


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The  English  Soarrow  in  New  England 


By  Fletcher  Osgood 


SINCE  the  fairly  complete  clear- 
ance (by  the  Committee  of 
which  I  was  chairman)  of  the 
English  sparrow  from  Boston 
Common,  in  1899,  both  the  Common 
and  Public  Garden — especially  the 
Garden — ^have  become  tolerably  good 
ground  for  observing  the  ways,  even 
in  the  nesting  season,  of  several  sorts 
of  our  blessed  native  American  birds. 
The  robin  now  breeds  within  these 
grounds  in  very  considerable  num- 
bers ;  the  Baltimore  oriole  is  a  not  in- 
frequent nester  there,  and  the  crow 
blackbird  breeds  in  the  elms  and 
beeches  of  the  Garden  and  perhaps  on 
the  Common,  to  the  extent  of  several 
audacious,  conspicuous  pairs.  Warb- 
ling vireos  also,  and  some  other  of  our 
smaller  native  birds,  have,  I  feel  well 
assured,  begun  to  build  their  nests 
here,  and  in  the  spring  migrations  the 
presence,  for  days  or  weeks,  about  the 
Common  and  Garden,  of  native 
American  bird-species  in  good  variety, 
may  often  be  counted  on. 

Though  the  work  of  the  Boston 
Sparrow  Committee  removed  perma- 
nently from  the  Common  about  seven- 
eighths  of  the  English  sparrows 
breeding  there,  the  work  was  stopped 
by  Mayor  Quincy  before  we  could 
clear  the  Garden,  and  in  the  Garden 
the  foreign  sparrow  still  abounds. 
The  remnant  eighth  yet  inhabiting  the 
Common  forms  a  considerable  body, 
and  either  place  remains  good  ground 


(the  Garden,  of  course,  far  the  bet- 
ter) for  noting  the  ways  of  the  im- 
migrant finch. 

For  the  purpose  then  of  forming  a 
good  foundation  for  our  opinions 
about  this  bird,  let  us  take  together, 
near  the  end  of  some  bright  May,  a 
series  of  reasonably  prolonged  obser- 
vations within  the  Public  Garden  and 
the  Common.  Since,  especially  in 
New  England,  it  is  not  largely  profit- 
able to  consider  the  English  sparrow 
otherwise  than  in  relation  to  our  na- 
tive birds,  let  us  first  note  some  of  our 
friends  in  feathers  who  are  real 
Americans.  Eook,  for  instance,  at 
that  red-eyed  vireo — New  England's 
commonest  *'Iittle  gray  hang-bird" — 
peering  in  constant  vigilance  as  he 
moves  about  the  limbs  of  a  small  tree. 
His  keen-exploring  eye,  glowing  with 
the  eflfulgence  of  a  partly  smothered 
coal,  pierces  the  dimness  of  innumer- 
able crannies  and  marks  the  shadowed 
under  parts  of  leaves.  He  is  alert  for 
the  insect  food  which  must  support 
him.  So  long  as  we  look  and  when- 
ever we  look,  his  purposeful  motion, 
without  haste,  without  rest,  goes  on, 
excepting  for  brief  interludes  of  pause 
for  song.  And  once  or  twice  he  even 
breaks  oflf  his  melodic  preachment  in 
the  midst,  to  seize  and  engulf  a  slug, 
sought  out  by  a  watchfulness  which 
has  never  for  an  instant  slumbered. 
Then,  glancing  along  the  rich  lawn 
of  the  Garden,  we  note  a    fine   male 

317 

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THE  ENGLISH  SPARROW  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 


robin,  foraging^  in  the  manner  of  his 
kind,  among  the  rootlets  of  the 
grasses;  he  stands  with  soIdier-Hke 
erectness  for  an  instant,  then  bounces 
a  fraction  of  a  foot,  comes  to  attention 
again,  makes  a  side-long,  listening 
bend,  and  then — down  plunges  the 
ready  beak  into  a  hidden  vertical  per- 
foration from  which  it  tugs  victori- 
ously a  malign  cut-worm.  In  this 
manner,  with  hearty  "logy'*  insistence, 
the  good  robin  keeps  on  foraging.  It 
is  so,  too,  with  other  robins,  farther 
down  the  lawn.  And  so  it  is  with  the 
orioles,  the  warbling  vireos,  the  vari- 
ous briefly  visitant  wood-warblers,  in 
their  several  ways.  So  also  with  the 
iridescent  purple  grakles,  alias  crow 
blackbirds,  whose  rapid  pedestrianism 
is  all  for  food  and  that  food  largely 
insectaceous.  Our  native  birds  we 
find  without  exception  to  be  in  all  but 
constant  motion  directed  nearly  all 
the  time  either  to  insect  eating  or  to 
[►ursuit  of  insect  food,  though  nest- 
construction  may  here  and  there  im- 
pose <\  check  upon  his  industry. 

And  now,  turning  to  the  foreign 
finch  we  are  markedly  impressed  with 
his  prevalent  inactivity.  Group  after 
group  of  English  si)arrows — though 
some,  to  be  sure,  are  picking  up  lunch 
crumbs — stand  about  the  lawn  or 
gathered  on  the  limbs  of  trees,  mutu- 
ally employed  in  nothing  more  worthy 
than  "Helping  Zekel.'*  Now  and  then 
the  lethargy  of  these  birds  is  broken 
by  a  descent  on  fresh  masses  of 
droppings  in  the  street,  and  we  by  and 
by  notice  that  some  of  the  sparrows 
on  the  lawn  begin  to  employ  them- 
selves in  what  looks  like  insect-eating. 
Drawing:  nearer,  we  find  this  to  be  an 
appearance  only.  The  sparrows  arc 
listlessly  picking  up  cut  grass  blades 


and  then  tossing  them  idly  about; 
seeking  nothing,  eating  nothing,  but 
simply  killing  time  with  an  aimless 
exercise. 

As  we  observe  the  foreign  sparrow 
further,  some  other  performances  of 
his  are  noted  which  at  least  simulate 
insect  capture  and  destruction.  Cer- 
tain sparrows,  for  instance,  briefly  en- 
gage in  the  pursuit  of  flying  insects ;  a 
few  insects  are  really  caught  thus  and 
destroyed,  but,  on  the  whole,  the  per- 
formance is  a  sort  of  vaudeville 
"stunt."  The  insects  mostly  get  away, 
and  the  sparrows,  after  a  suflSciently 
vigorous,  hut  brief  and  farcical  little 
chase,  return  to  their  loafing,  satisfied 
with  this  momentary  trial  of  burlesque 
athletics.  The  difference  is  world- 
wide between  these  sparrow-antics 
and  the  systematized,  persistent,  ex- 
pert, dead-in-earnest,  hunger-goaded 
quests  and  seizures  of  the  native  birds. 
There  is  yet  another  exercise  in 
wliich  both  male  and  female  English 
sparrows  separately  engage,  which 
has  the  look  of  insect-seeking.     It  is 


Courtesy  of  Youth's  Companion. 

Ar  Work 

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THE  ENGLISH  SPARROW  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 


319 


followed  mostly  in  the  grass,  growing 
thick  and  long  on  the  Beacon  Street 
banks  of  the  Common.  The  perform- 
ance goes  on  thus :  The  sparrow  rises 
into  the  air  perhaps  four  feet  or  less 
and  there  hangs  with  rapid,  winnow- 
ing wings,  contemplating  the  grass  as 
if  in  watchful  expectation  of  some 
prey  below;  then  he  (or  she,  it  may 
happen  either  way),  makes  an  effec- 
tive exit  by  a  swift  drop,  down  and 
out  of  sight,  waits  awhile,  then  rises 
and  repeats  the  act.  All  this,  how- 
ever, is  but  another  neat  vaudeville 
turn — these  sparrows  are  not  in  quest 
of  prey.  The  little  comedy  is  sea- 
sonable, more  or  less  obscurely  related 
to  erotic  ecstacy,  and  has  no  more 
relevancy  to  insect  destruction  than 
has  the  somersault  of  a  schoolboy. 

I  have  called  attention  to  the  antics 
of  the  English  sparrow  as  exhibited 
on  the  Common  and  Garden,  because 
these  pleasure-grounds  of  our  metrop- 
olis are  frequented  by  people  from  all 
parts  of  New  England,  and  because 
the  sparrow,  contrasted  during  con- 
siderable period^  with  many  sorts  of 
native  birds,  can  be  very  accurately 
and  thoroughly  observed  there. 

^^'^hat  the  English  sparrow  is  on  the 
Common  and  Garden  he  substantially 
is,  allowing  for  such  variations  in 
habit  as  exist,  all  over  New  England. 
1  have  taken  the  food-habits  of  this 
bird  as  a  principal  study  because  in 
New  England  (as  in  any  land  of 
cultivated  fields,  of  gardens,  parks 
and  woodlands)  the  food  habits  of 
this  and  of  any  abundant  and  long- 
frequenting  bird-species  is  of  prime 
economic  importance.  What  any  such 
bird-species  eats  determines,  to  a  large 
extent,  in  any  community,  its  useful- 
ness or  harmfulness.     Insect  eating. 


though  it  probably  deserves  pre-emi- 
nence, is  not,  as  we  shall  see,  by  any 
means  all  the  prudential  good  which 
good  birds  do  us.  And  then  there  is, 
too,  the  purely  sentimental  side  of  the 
fascinating  bird-question.  But  ill- 
considered  economic  motives,  founded 
apparently  on  a  vague  notion  that 
English  sparrows  would  extirpate 
canker  worms  from  our  parks,  im- 
pelled, it  would  seem  in  the  main,  the 
first  extensive  introductions  of  the 
foreign  finch  to  America,  and  it  is 
therefore  fitting  that  insect  economics 
should  find  a  first  place  in  this  article. 

So  far  as  can  be  learned,  the  Eng- 
lish sparrow — till  then  a  bird  not  in- 
deed peculiar  at  all  to  England,  but 
strictly  a  bird  of  the  Eastern  Hemis- 
phere— was  first  brought  to  the  United 
States  in  1851.  A  gentleman  of  intel- 
ligence, who  truly  thought  he  was  do- 
ing an  excellent  deed,  in  that  year,  it 
would  appear,  founded  at  Buffalo, 
New  York,  the  first  English  sparrow 
colony  in  the  Western  Hemisphere. 
Other  like  colonies  were,  at  intervals, 
afterward  founded  in  various  cities 
of  our  East  and  West ;  the  underlying 
motive  for  these  deplorable  intrusions 
being  apparently  a  compound  or  blend 
of  the  economic  one  already  noted, 
with  immigrant-yearning  for  a  "home- 
bird,"  and  the  pestilent  superstition 
which  has  done  so  much  harm  in  the 
United  States— that  anything  Euro- 
pean must  of  necessity  be  better  than 
anything  native. 

A  few  English  sparrows  acciden- 
tally escaped  from  a  vessel  stopping  at 
Boston  in  1858,  but  they  were  not 
aftenvard  heard  of.  In  1868  the  first 
formal  introduction  of  the  English 
sparrow  to  Boston  was  made  by  liber- 
ating twenty  pairs  of  the  finch  on  Bos- 


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THE  ENGLISH  SPARROW  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 


ton  Common.  More  were  soon  delib- 
erately brought  to  Boston  and  set  free. 
Ihe  year  1869  witnessed  the  sorry 
spectacle  of  the  formal  Hberation  of 
one  thousand  imported  sparrows  in 
Philadelphia.  Some  years  before  this, 
the  foreign  bird  had  acquired  head- 
way in  New  York  City,  and  I  remem- 
ber noting  them  as  a  curiosity  when 
as  a  boy  I  first  visited  that 
city  in  1869.  By  the  early  seven- 
ties the  English  sparrow  was  becom- 
ing very  numerous  in  many  of  the 
larger  Eastern  cities.  A  mania  for  its 
deliberate  introduction,  artfully  stim- 
ulated, of  course,  by  sparrow-sellers, 
and  comparable  to  the  recent  Belgian 
hare  fever,  then  swept  over  the  land 
and  sparrow  colonies  were  soon  rap- 
idly installed  from  Maine  to  Califor- 
nia. *'From  this  time  to  the  present," 
said,  in  1889,  Dr.  C.  Hart  Merriam, 
officially  the  Chief  of  Economic  Or- 
nithologists in  the  United  States,  '*the 
marvelloMs  rapidity  of  this  sparrow's 
multiplication,  the  surprising  swift- 
ness of  its  extension,  and  the  prodi- 
gious size  of  the  area  it  has  over- 
spread are  without  parallel  in  the  his- 
tory of  any  bird.  Like  a  noxious 
weed  transplanted  to  a  fertile  soil  it 
has  taken  root  and  become  dissemi- 
nated over  half  a  continent  before  the 
significance  of  its  presence  has  come 
to  be  understood."  To-day,  except- 
ing in  limited  desert  or  wilderness 
areas,  the  English  sparrow  abounds 
all  over  the  United  States  east  of  the 
Mississippi ;  west  of  it  and  beyond  the 
Rocky  Mountains  it  preempts  vast  re- 
gions, and  in  nearly  every  densely 
settled  centre  of  our  population  it 
literally  swarms.  As  Dr.  Merriam  is 
careful  to  tell  us,  this  astounding  in- 
crease and  spread  is  by  no  means  all 


chargeable  to  the  phenomenal  fecun- 
dity, hardihood  and  adaptability  of 
this  foreigner.  Much  of  it  arises 
from  the  deliberate  establishment  in 
the  past  of  colonies  of  the  sparrow, 
as  has  been  noted,  by  our  citizens, 
blind  to  the  evil  of  it..  Moreover,  in 
those  days  of  sparrow-booming  the 
immigrant  finch  was  sheltered,  petted, 
fed  and  generally  coddled  as  none  of 
our  native  birds  had  ever  been. 
Special  laws  were  actually  made  in 
some  communities  for  his  protection 
and  civic  food  provided  for  him  by 
the  barrel.  We  were,  in  fact,  com- 
pletely befooled  by  this  aggressive, 
self-reliant,  self-protective  rowdy  for- 
eigner, who  of  all  familiar  creatures 
least  deserves  perhaps  or  for  his  own 
needs  even  requires,  the  fostering  care 
of  man. 

In  the  retrospect  all  this  seems  very 
nauseous  to  me,  but  I  have  to  ac- 
knowledge that  there  stands  on  con- 
demnatory record  several  short  arti- 
cles written  by  me,  a  youth  of  the  mid- 
dle eighteen-seventies,  commending 
this  bird  to  the  fostering  care  of  our 
citizens!  I  was  very  young  and  did 
not  know  any  better;  that  is  my  only 
excuse;  I  was  as  wise  as  nearly 
everybody  about  me,  to  be  sure,  but 
no  wiser.  Yet  there  were,  even  at 
that  time  of  unwisdom,  "a  few  in- 
telligent ornithologists,  a  few  natu- 
ralized citizens  who  had  spent 
years  in  fighting  the  bird  in  its  native 
land"  (says  Dr.  Merriam)  who  ut- 
tered grave  words  of  warning.  But 
these  were  few  indeed. 

On  Boston  Common,  then  a  native 
birds'  paradise,  the  foreign  sparrow 
was  welcomed  with  all  the  unthinking 
joy  that  characterized  his  reception 
elsewhere.     Special  houses  and  iron 


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THE  ENGLISH  SPARROW  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 


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boxes  were  constructed  and  carefully 
placed  for  the  pretenders'  accommoda- 
tion. Infatuated  Boston  actually  went 
the  length  of  suspending  the  execu- 
tion of  its  ordinance  against  the  dis- 
charge of  fire  arms  within  the  city 
limits,  in  favor  of  certain  employees 
who  systematically  shot  down,  one  by 
one,  a  small  band  of  northern  shrikes 
who  had  come  in  from  the  country 
with  the  beneficent  object  of  thinning 
out  the  Common  sparrows. 

Things  went  on  this  way  for  some 
years.  Native  American  birds,  nearly 
all  highly  beneficent  and  delightful 
in  plumage,  song  or  way  of  life, 
which  had  hitherto  haunted  Boston 
Common  and  bred  upon  it  in  welcome 
quantity  (read,  in  this  connection, 
Bradford  Torrey's  earlier  bird-notes) 
began  soon  to  lessen,  and  before  long 
almost  totally  disappeared,  unless  as 
casual,  brief,  unwilling  migrants. 
From  the  Common  vanished  the 
lovely  bluebird  and  dear  chipping 
sparrow;  the  barn-swallow,  which  till 
these  evil  days  had  bred  about  the 
State  House,  took  himself  off ;  robins, 
unless  as  passing  migrants,  aban- 
doned the  grounds;  even  the  elm- 
haunting  orioles  so  fled  away  from 
this  paradise  of  their  kind  that  in  the 
cx)urse  of  some  years  I  was  unable 
after  scrupulous  examination  to  dis- 
cover so  much  as  one  orioles'  nest  on 
the  entire  Common.  In  fact,  of  the 
Common,  Public  Garden  and  their 
vicinage  the  evil  sparrow  in  quicl< 
time  took  absolute  insolent  posses- 
sion, and  held  it  without  a  break  until 
the  work  of  the  Sparrow  Committee 
of  1899  partially  evicted  the  intruder. 
Meanwhile  the  evil  sparrow  had 
spread  all  over  New  England  (ex- 
cepting in  dense  forest  or  sheer  wil- 


derness) from  Maine's  to  Connecti- 
cut's extremest  borders.  Crowded  in 
great  hoodlum  gangs  in  the  cities  and 
large  towns,  it  also  intruded  upon  the 
isolated  farms;  a  bully,  supplanter, 
destroyer,  disturber,  robber  and  para- 
site everywhere. 

From  the  huge  mass  of  relevant,  in- 
disputable testimony  on  this  head  I 
select  for  use  here,  a  letter  from  a 
Virginian  correspondent.  1  do  so  be- 
cause it  is  recent,  vivid,  and  except- 
ing in  one  obscure  instance  has  never 
before  been  used  in  print:  "It  oc- 
curs to  me  to  tell  you  about  some- 
thing I  saw  the  English  sparrows  do, 
only  a  few  days  ago.  We  have  seen 
them  chase  off  the  bluebirds  and 
wrens,  destroying  their  nests,  but 
never  before  have  I  seen  their  innate 
wickedness.  During  a  storm  a  nest 
of  chimney- swifts  became  dislodged 
and  fell  into  my  room.  The  storm 
clearing,  I  put  the  two  little  swifts 
in  the  nest,  close  to  the  chimney,  on 
the  roof,  in  hopes  that  the  parents 
might  see  and  feed  them.  Called  awa)' 
a  few  moments,  I  returned  to  find 
two  sparrows,  picking  in  the  most 
vicious  manner  at  the  little  swifts.  I 
saw  the  sparrows  had  killed  them,  so 
I  watched.  The  sparrows  picked  and 
flew  at  the  dead  swifts  and  finally 
dragged  the  bodies  across  the  roof  to 
its  edge  and  flung  them  over.  Re- 
turning, they  tore  the  nest  to  bits, 
throwing  it,  piece  by  piece,  after  the 
dead  bodies  of  the  nestlings.  We  are 
tormented  here  by  the  sparrows." 

But  may,  perhaps,  the  sparrow 
atone,  in  some  part,  for  his  grievous 
wrong  to  our  insect-subjugating 
"friends  in  feathers"  by  his  own  de- 
struction of  injurious  insects?  The 
question  is  of  such  vital  moment,  that. 

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THE  ENGLISH  SPARROW  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 


though  I  have  answered  it,  I  shall 
briefly  return  to  it  just  here,  and  more 
specifically. 

Briefly,  then,  the  concensus — prac- 
tically unanimous — of  our  economic 
ornithologists  assures  us  that  the  evil 
sparrow  does  not  atone  nor  even 
thus  approximate  atonement.  It  is 
an  indisputable  fact  that  the  English 
sparrow  in  New  England,  as  else- 
where, is  mainly  a  seed-eater,  and 
only  incidentally  a  feeder  upon  in- 
sects. Of  the  insects  which  he  does 
destroy,  a  share  are  beneficial  or  neu- 
tral instead  of  harmful.  The  number 
of  harmful  insects  (iestroyed  by  this 
sparrow  is  insignificant  compared 
with  the  number  of  such  insects 
which  he  protects,  by  mobbing  out  or 
killing  the  native  birds  that  would 
otherwise  have  destroyed  them.  Right 
here  in  Massachusetts  we  have  glar- 
ing evidence  to  the  point;  for  in  our 
towns  and  cities  infested  throughout 
by  swarming  hosts  of  sparrows,  the 
gypsy,  brown-tail  and  tussock  moths, 
with  other  evil  insects,  appallingly 
swarm  also. 

But  even  admitting,  as  we  must 
admit,  that  the  English  sparrow  fails 
disgracefully  as  a  reducer  of  harm- 
ful insects,  does  not  his  seed-eating 
liabit  make  him  of  high  value  as  a 
destroyer  of  weed  seeds?  Many  of 
our  native  sparrows  and  finches  are 
most  efficient  thus;  winning  high 
praises  from  our  economic  experts. 
We  must  add,  too,  that  along  New 
England  roadsides  and  open  lots, 
overgrown  with  Roman  wormwood 
and  other  noxious  weeds,  where  for- 
merly we  might  seasonably  expect 
the  radiant  goldfinch,  painted  red-poll, 
hearty  tree-sparrow  (beloved  of 
Thoreau),  quick  snow  bird  or  pied 


snow  bunting,  now,  with  the  IcMig 
banishment  of  these,  flocks  of  English 
sparrows  sometimes,  in  the  Autumn 
settle  down  and  feed.  It  is  also  true 
that,  at  least  in  Washington,  D.  C, 
some  good  is  done  by  English  spar- 
rows in  extirpating  dandelion  and 
other  weed  seed  from  lawns.  To 
get  the  freshest  data  on  the 
point  now  raised,  I  wrote  just  before 
making  up  tliis  article,  to  the  expert 
in  charge  of  Economic  Ornithology 
at  Washington.  Here  is  his  answer: 
**The  weed  seed-eating  habit  you 
speak  of  seems  to  be  somewhat  simi- 
lar to  the  one  the  English  sparrow  has 
in  the  middle  West  (notably  Ohio), 
where  it  leaves  the  cities  in  great 
numbers  when  the  wheat  is  nearly 
mature,  and  spends  the  late  Summer 
and  Fall  months  in  the  grain  fields 
but  returns  to  the  cities  at  the  ap- 
proach of  cold  weather.  As  there  are 
few  if  any  grain  fields  accessible  from 
Boston,  the  sparrow  probably  finds  an 
acceptable  substitute  in  the  seed  of 
the  Ambrosia  [commonly  called]  Rag- 
weed" or  Roman  wormwood.  *  *  * 
If  they  remained  on  these  weed 
patches  all  Winter,  as  many  of 
our  native  birds  do,  they  might  do 
an  appreciable  good,  but  as  they  prob- 
ably return  to  the  towns  at  the  ap- 
proach of  Winter  the  good  done  is 
very  small.  *  *  *  What  weed- 
seed  they  do  eat  is  insignificant  as 
compared  with  that  eaten  by  the  tree- 
sparrow  and  several  other  species." 

In  addition  to  all  that  we  have  said, 
the  English  sparrow  is  known  to  be 
an  extensive,  most  mischievous  de- 
stroyer of  poultry  food,  grain  crops 
and  garden  vegetables  and  fruits,  a 
notorious  defiler  of  out-door  statuary, 
cemeteries,  park-seats,  churches   and 


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THE  ENGLISH  SPARROW  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 


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all  forms  of  residential  and  business 
architecture.  A  more  than  extensive 
erecter  of  large  nests  made  up  of  in- 
flammable trash,  which,  according  as 
they  are  placed,  menace  wooden  struc- 
tures with  conflagration,  bring  about 
defilement  of  water-supplies,  stop  up 
roof-gutters,  obstruct  water-pipes,  de- 
face architecture,  clog  street  lamps  or 
endanger  foliage  by  harboring  hosts 
of  gypsy  moths  and  other  noxious 
insects.  The  sparrow  is  also,  in  New 
England,  a  disturber,  to  some  extent, 
of  doves  in  their  cotes.  Of  his  in- 
cessant, joyless,  heartless  outcry, 
smiting  the  ear  like  the  clink  of  metal 
on  stone,  a  correspondent  of  Dr.  Mer- 
riam  thus  truly  speaks : 

"To  many,  our  singing  birds  form 
the  very  poetry  of  the  year  and  when 
they  are  replaced  *  *  *  by 
these  noisy  and  dirty  sparrows  so  that 
half  the  charm  of  Spring  is  gone,  no 
little  suffering  results.  The  effect 
upon  sick  or  nervous  people,  of  their 
monotonous  and  peculiarly  untuneful 
cry  is  very  great.  The  English  spar- 
row has  in  noxious  doing  all  the  "in- 
dustry and  perseverance'*  ascribed 
by  the  dear  old  lady,  in  unwitting 
praise,  to  Satan,  and  also  all  that  sin- 
ister potentate's  low  cunning.  The 
bird  is  loyal  to  some  parental  obliga- 
tions, but  grossly  disloyal  to  other 
bird-ideals  of  domestic  ethics.  On 
the  whole,  this  sparrow  is  a  dirty, 
noisy,  bullying,  quarrelling,  cruel,  sa- 
lacious, thievish,  impudent,  ribald  lit- 
tle rowdy  and  blackguard,  who  does 
not  scruple  to  murder,  and  whose 
ubiquitous  presence  among  our  young 
l^eople  surely  does  not  tend,  upon  the 
whole,  to  their  social  or  moral  eleva- 
tion, but  quite  the  other  way. 

It  is  not  even  true  that  the  English 


sparrow  is  the  only  bird  which  gath- 
ers about  the  treeless,  plantless  resi- 
dential districts  in  towns  and  cities 
during  the  Winter.  Doves  abundantly 
gather  in  such  districts  at  this  sea- 
son, and  would  gather  more  numer- 
ously and  constantly  if  they  were 
more  encouraged  to  do  so.  In  almost 
every  conceivable  way,  doves  are  the 
ethical  antipodes  to  English  sparrows. 
They  are  unassuming,  gentle-man- 
nered and  tender- voiced ;  their  chaste 
and  noble  conjugal  lives  have  passed 
into  a  proverb;  they  strictly  let  live 
as  well  as  live ;  they  come  readily  and 
with  lovely  grace,  to  those  who  feed 
them.  Their  plumage  is  varied  and 
beautiful.  Even  in  the  manner  of  un- 
cleanliness  they  are  far  less  open  to 
criticism  than  are  English  sparrows, 
and  with  some  care  as  to  housing 
them  (vide  Trinity  Church,  Boston's 
noblest  structure,  which,  though  abun- 
dantly dove-haunted,  is  free  from 
dove-defacement),  inconvenience ^  un- 
der this  head  may  be  avoided. 

The  plain  duty  of  all  New  England 
people  is  now  to  do  what  in  them 
lies  (without  wantonness,  of  course, 
or  toleration  of  torture)  to  reduce  this 
sparrow-plague.  I  heartily  wish  that 
I  could  suggest  some  indirect,  pleas- 
ant, beguiling,  coaxing  way  of  doing 
it,  but  I  cannot.  The  English  spar- 
row is  not  to  be  beguiled  or  coaxed. 
He  is  keen,  knowing,  up-and-coming, 
if  ever  bird  were.  No  "sv/inging 
nests"  fabled  to  repel  the  sparrow,  no 
scarecrows,  or  other  like  petty  devices, 
will  avail  at  all.  He  laughs  them  all 
to  scorn.  To  reduce  the  harm  of 
New  England  sparrows,  we  must  de- 
stroy the  sparrows.  There  is  no  other 
way.  But  in  doing  this,  we  need  not 
and  ought    not    to  be    cruel.      The 


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THE  ENGLISH  SPARROW  IN  NEW  ENGLAND 


stranger-finch  may  be  by  us  effectu- 
ally put  away  by  methods  far  more 
prompt  and  less  discomforting  than 
nature's  own  reductive  ways.  The 
nests  of  English  sparrows  may,  in  the 
egg-season,  be  systematically  de- 
stroyed with  the  eggs.  If  the  spar- 
row breeds  in  tree-holes,  the  holes,  as 
was  done  by  us  on  Boston  Common, 
may  be,  after  the  nest-removal,  per- 
manently stopped  up.  These  spar- 
rows may  be  instantly  killed  with  a 
22-inch  Winchester  rifle  loaded  with 
fine  shot,  and  noiseless  powder  may 
be  used.  On  a  small  estate  in  Mai- 
den, Massachusetts,  a  single  rifle  used 
thus  so  impressed  the  cautious  spar- 
rows that  the  mere  showing  of  the 
rifle,  without  discharge,  was  soon 
sufficient.  Indeed,  the  estate  ^o 
guarded  presently  became  taboo  to 
English  sparrows,  though  estates  ad- 
joining it  swarmed  with  them.  This 
I  know. 

A  house-trap,  of  generous  size, 
baited  with  grain,  has  proved  an  ef- 
ficient and  merciful  reducer  of  the 
sparrow,  at  Nahant  in  Massachusetts. 
General  encouragement  should  be 
given  to  the  use  of  sparrows  as  food. 


But  I  cannot  enlarge  upon  this  theme. 
The  list  of  legitimate  remedial  meas- 
lires  is  long,  and  may  be  further 
drawn  upon  through  application  to 
the  U.  S.  Department  of  Agriculture. 

Unless  I  am  misinformed,  the  laws 
of  all  the  New  England  states  are 
ample  for  efficient  state  or  municipal 
work  against  the  plague  of  sparrows. 
They  certainly  are  so  in  Massachu- 
setts. In  time,  I  think  that  a  large 
share  of  sparrow-suppression  among 
us  will  be  thus  officially  rather  than 
individually  done.  In  the  meantime, 
let  individuals  do  their  duty. 

Apparently  the  English  sparrow 
in  New  England  is  just  now  numeri- 
cally at  a  standstill,  neither  increas- 
ing nor  decreasing,  on  the  average, 
perceptibly.  Like  the  common  rat — 
another  European  introduction — ^the 
bird  is  doubtless  destined  always  to 
be  with  us  in  some  numbers,  l/.ut 
though  the  English  sparrow  cannot, 
probably,  be  exterminated  it  may  be, 
as  we  have  said,  effectively  sup- 
pressed. A  few  of  these  stranger- 
finches  scattered  about  New  England 
can  do  little  hann.  The  loss  and  dan- 
ger lie  in  their  inordinate  numbers. 


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The  Valley  of  Refuge 

By  Agnes  Louise  Provost 


NORTH  and  south,  east  and 
west,  the  sun  glared  down 
on  yawning  desert.  Sparse 
little  bushes  dotted  the 
huge  blankness  here  and  there,  a 
mockery  of  vegetation;  not  a  living 
thing  moved  save  an  occasional  lizard, 
flickering  across  the  sand.  The  sun 
was  a  pitiless  splotch  of  flame  against 
a  sky  of  beaten  brass ;  the  eyes  ached 
from  the  glare  of  them  both,  flaring 
back  from  the  desert  in  maddening 
heat  waves. 

As  the  afternoon  wore  on  toward 
sunset,  when  existence  would  become 
at  least  bearable,  a  man  slowly  picked 
himself  up  from  where  he  had  been 
lying  with  his  head  under  the  paltry 
shelter  of  a  greasewood,  and  looked 
doubtfully  from  his  drooping  horse  to 
the  purple  shadow  of  the  hills  beyond. 
He  knew  that  when  he  came  nearer  to 
them,  when  that  haunting  desert  haze 
could  no  longer  soften  them  into  vio- 
let clouds,  they  would  be  as  hard  in 
their  way  as  the  face  of  the  desert 
was  in  its  own,  but  there  at  least  would 
be  shade,  some  little  relief  from  the 
tormenting  flame  which  filled  body 
and  mind  and  soul;  that  somewhere, 
could  he  but  fitid  it,  there  would  be 
blessed  water,  a  strip  of  green  vdley, 
from  which  the  face  of  God  had  not 
been  turned  away. 

With  one  hand  on  his  horse's  neck 
he  stood  for  a  moment  hesitating,  and 
looked  back  over  the  pathless  way  by 
whkrh  he  had  come.    Only  an  infinite 


glare  of  yellow  desert,  which  before  his 
half-blinded  eyes  flickered  dazzlingly 
and  melted  into  the  deeper  glare  of 
the  sky,  but  what  lay  beyond  it,  none 
knew  better  than  he.  Insistent  fingers 
plucked  at  him,  dragging  him  back  to 
the  things  which  had  been.  He  half 
turned  that  way,  an  unsteady  laugh 
in  his  throat  and  the  gleam  of  reckless- 
ness in  his  sand-reddened  eyes.  Then 
the  soul  in  him  cried  out,  through  the 
cnist  which  those  things  had  drawn 
over  it.  "I  won't!  I  can't!  This  is 
my  last  chance." 

In  another  second  he  was  on  his 
wilted  horse  and  had  turned  with  fierce 
impatience  toward  the  purple  bullc  of 
the  hills,  pulling  his  hat  well  over  his 
eyes  and  pressing  his  fingers  to  his 
temples  to  deaden  the  dizzy  horror  in 
his  brain. 

Horse  and  man  were  a  speck  on  the 
face  of  the  desert.  The  horse 
crawled  along  lifelessly;  the  man 
swayed  in  his  saddle.  The  sun  dropped 
lower,  the  air  became  a  shade  less 
terrible;  a  jack-rabbit  awoke  into  en- 
ergy and  loped  across  their  path.  The 
man  scarcely  saw  him,  but  pushed 
stubbornly  ahead  for  the  nearing  wall 
of  the  hills. 


Securely  tucked  away  in  the  forbid- 
ding Chihuicahui  range,  almost  on  the 
lip  of  the  parched  desert,  there  lies 
a  tiny  strip  of  valley  where  the  fresh 
green  things  of  the  earth  will  grow, 

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THE  VALLEY  OF  REFUGE 


where  water,  sweet,  God-given  water, 
comes  trickling  almost  unperceived 
from  the  crevices  of  the  rocks.  Here 
in  the  calm  stillness  of  early  twilight, 
deepened  by  the  mountains  which  shut 
him  in,  a  man  squatted  comfortably 
before  a  greasewood  fire,  preparing 
his  supper.  Back  of  him  a  cabin,  with 
a  cleared  patch  of  ground  and  a  few 
primitive  garden  things  growing, 
marked  this  for  a  home. 

It  was  «n  appetizing  odor  which 
arose  from  the  meat  broiling  over  the 
fire,  and  the  man  sniflfed  it  apprecia- 
tively. He  was  tall  and  large  boned, 
rather  spare,  but  tanned  with  the 
ruddv  brown  of  those  who  use  a 
house  merely  for  the  formality  of 
sleep. 

His  life  had  given  him  the  quick  ear 
of  a  wild  thing.  He  turned  at  a  dis- 
tant sound  which  only  a  plainsman  or 
an  Indian  could  have  heard,  and  a 
moment  later  stared  in  slow  wonder 
at  the  sight  of  a  stumbling,  drooping 
horse,  and  a  man,  a  white  man,  with 
the  desert's  wringing  exhaustion 
stamped  on  his  face. 

"Hello!"  The  settler  called  it  out 
cheerfully  across  the  fire,  placed  the 
cooking  game  where  it  would  not  need 
his  immediate  care,  and  went  forward 
to  meet  man  and  horse. 

*'YouVe  done  out,"  he  said,  with 
curious  compassion,  as  the  newcomer 
staggered  on  dismounting.  "Stretch 
out  here  imtil  youVe  pulled  yourself 
together  again." 

The  strangfcr  dropped  down  thank- 
fully, while  his  host  went  off  with  the 
horse  and  returned  with  the  boon  of 
water. 

"There,  not  so  fast." 

The  thirsty  man  submitted  docilely 
to  the  calm  authority  which  took  awav 


the  water  he  had  been  taking  in  eager 
gulps,  drew  a  long  breath  and  sat  up 
to  look  with  wondering  curiosity  at 
his  surroundings. 

"You  live  here,  don't  you?"  he 
commented  with  slightly  rising  inflec- 
tion, as  though  it  had  just  occurred  to 
him,  and  his  host  smiled  somewhat 
grimly. 

"1  suppose  I  do.  Fve  been  here 
eight  years,  if  that  constitutes  living. 
My  name  is  Trent." 

"And  mine, — well,  call  me  Johnson. 
That  v/ill  answer,  won't  it  ?" 

The  fellow's  mood  seemed  reckless, 
and  his  laugh  was  too  cynical  to  be 
entirely  pleasant,  but  Trent  shrugged 
his  big  shoulders  philosophically  and 
went  back  to  his  broiling  game. 

"Supper's  about  ready,"  he  ob- 
served irrelevantly,  and  they  sat  down 
to  it  hungrily,  the  man  who  had  made 
this  his  solitary  home  and  the  one  who 
had  come  reeling  in  from  the  desert, 
leaving  his  identity  behind  him.  They 
were  men  of  the  same  manner  of 
speech — each  had  observed  that — and 
ii  was  not  a  speech  indigenous  to  the 
place  in  which  they  found  themselves. 
Roth  transplanted,  but  from  where? 
There  the  resemblance  ended.  The 
host  was  steady  and  calm  of  voice, 
nniet  in  word  and  action;  the  guest's 
every  movement  quivered  with  nerv- 
ous impatience,  his  face  was  haggard, 
his  eyes  flickered  restlessly  from  spot 
to  spot,  in  speech  he  was  quick  to 
abruptness,  in  silence  he  seemed  to  slip 
into  moody  abstraction. 

Thev  finished  their  meal  and  sat  in 
the  deepening  shadows  without  speech, 
Trent  piled  more  greasewood  on  the 
fire  for  the  cheer  of  its  light,  and 
wondered  amusedly  whether  he  should 
fc^uard  against  hi<?  guest  as  a  fleeing 


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THE  VALLEY  OF  REFUGE 


327 


desperado  or  accept  him  as  a  rather 
erratic  gentleman.  Ethical  distinctions 
vary  with  geographical  dilTerences ;  in 
southern  Arizona  one  may  overlook 
ethical  obliquities  which  would  be  a 
matter  for  indictment  in  Boston. 
'*  *The  world  forgetting,  by  the  world 
forgot/  " 
Johnson  said  it  over  to  himself,  and 
Trent  looked  at  him  curiously.  The 
sound  of  the  man's  voice,  coming  out 
of  silence  in  this  odd  way,  had  some- 
thing ghostly  about  it. 

''Eight  years!"  said  Johnson  sud- 
denly, turning  toward  Trent.  "It  is 
a  long  time." 

Trent  arose  and  sauntered  restlessly 
up  and  down.  This  visitor  from  the 
outer  world,  who,  whatever  he  had 
been  or  done,  was  apparently  a  man  of 
his  own  plane  of  life,  filled  him  with 
disturbing  thoughts  of  the  old  things, 
the  busy,  interested  life  he  had 
dropped  out  of. 

"It's  a  ghastly  long  time,"  he  said 
gloomily.  "It  is  a  wonder  I  have  not 
lost  the  pc»wer  of  speech." 

He  stopped  and  looked  at  his  guest 
with  a  short  laugh. 

"Why,  man,  your's  is  the  first  white 
face  I've  seen  in  three  years,  and  then 
it  was  h?lf  Mexican.  Nobody  comes 
here  but  an  occasional  Indian,  about 
once  in  six  months,  and  as  I've  noth- 
ing worth  their  stealing,  they  don't 
bother  me  much.  The  days  of  their 
depredations  are  over,  and  there  isn't 
even  the  excitement  of  going  to  bed 
with  the  chance  of  waking  up 
scalped." 

"The  usual  price  of  excitement," 
commented  his  guest  morosely,  "the 
risk  of  vour  life — or  the  risk  of  your 
soul." 

"^Vhat  good  is  your  life  if  you  can't 


live  it?"  Trent  demanded.  The 
chance  of  talking  to  a  white  man,  after 
all  the  years  of  self-imposed  exile, 
made  him  expand  into  an  eager  volu- 
bility. "It  is  a  fine  thing  for  a  vaca- 
tion, but  for  all  time — God  forbid! 
It  is  like  dying  and  being  translated 
to  a  hell  of  solitary  confinement !" 

"It  is  a  valley  of  refuge." 

Johnson's  restless  eyes  flickered 
from  him  to  the  cabin  and  the  shelter- 
ing mountain  sides  and  back  again. 
Trent  shrugged  his  shoulders  and 
laughed  ruefully. 

"I  grant  it,  but  even  a  valley  of 
refuge  may  become  a  prison  when  you 
can't  leave  it.  Ten  years  ago  the  doc- 
tors told  me  to  go  west  for  a  few 
years, — my  last  throw  for  life.  I 
came.  I  also  took  a  fool's  advice  and 
sank  what  little  money  I  possessed  in 
a  cattle  ranch  in  New  Mexico,  and  at 
the  end  of  two  vears  I  was  lucky  to 
clear  out  with  about  five  dollars,  the 
clothes  on  my  back,  a  pretty  decent 
horse  and  one  man's  share  of  fire- 
arms. I  wasn't  fit  yet  to  go  back  east, 
I  hadn't  the  courage  or  energy  left  in 
me  to  borrow  money  for  a  new  ven- 
ture. I  started  across  Arizona  with 
two  other  fellows  in  an  equally  bad 
way  financially,  and  when  we  struck 
this  valley  I  thought  that  Fate,  or 
Providence,  or  something,  had  put  this 
here  for  me.  The  other  fellows 
went  on,  and  I  stayed.  I  thought  I 
would  make  it  a  year  to  get  my  health 
all  back,  but  somehow  it  slipped  into 
two  and  three,  and  so  on  to  eight. 
When  you  are  alone,  and  have  no  par- 
ticular incentive  to  anything,  you 
grow  sluggish  and  apathetic.'' 

"You  want  to  go  back,"  commented 
his  guest,  with  an  abrupt  earnestness. 
"I  want  to  stay.      I   came   over    the 


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THE  VALLEY  OF  REFUGE 


desert  alone,  and  the  Providence 
which  watches  over  fools  guided  me 
here.  I  have  money,  clean  enough  as 
money  goes,  and  I  will  trade  it  for 
the  right  to  stay  here.  Whenever  you 
wish  to  return,  I  will  give  back  the 
place  and  call  it  even." 

"You  are  crazy,"  said  his  host,  suc- 
cinctly, but  his  pulse  pumped  harder 
at  the  thought  of  going  back.  He  had 
tried  to  school  himself  to  remain  here, 
because  it  was  better  to  be  a  self- 
respecting  hermit  in  the  wilderness 
than  to  go  back  to  the  old  associations 
a  tramp  and  an  outcast. 

"If  you  refuse,"  the  quick  voice 
pounded  at  him  insistently,  "I  shall 
only  go  a  little  deeper  into  these 
mountains,  and  fight  my  living  out 
of  the  rocks  and  brush  there.  I  am 
going  to  stay.  The  money  is  useless 
to  me,  worse,  because  with  it  I  might 
yield  to  the  temptation  to  go  back, — 
where  I  must  not  go.  You  need  it  for 
your  journey  and  expenses." 

"It  would  be  highway  robbery," 
said  Trent  bluntly.  "What  right  have 
I  to  take  money  for  this  place?  It's 
government  land." 

"If  you  do  not  take  it,  I  shall  either 
give  it  to  the  first  Indian  who  comes 
here  or  throw  it  away,"  said  Johnson 
recklessly.  "You  are  going.  It's  a 
bargain,  and  you  take  my  horse." 

"Maybe,"  said  Trent  cautiously. 
"Come,  you  go  to  bed.  You're  a 
wreck,  and  you  must  have  had  a 
frightful  day." 

Late  into  the  night  Trent  lay  awake 
with  busily  humming  thoughts,  eager 
as  a  boy  at  the  prospect  of  return,  yet 
ashamed  to  accept  the  terms.  What 
could  this  queer  fellow  be?  What 
could  he  have  done,  that  he  was  so 
anxious  to  hurry  himself  from  the 


sight  and  memory  of  men?  Hj 
heard  the  man  moving  restlessly; 
twice  he  groaned  under  his  breath, 
and  finally  arose  and  slipped  out. 

Without  moving,  Trent  watched 
him.  Under  the  light  of  the  moon 
he  saw  Johnson  fumble  in  his  pockets, 
find  a  crumpled  envelope  and  a  note 
book,  and  write,  write.  Suddenly 
the  writer  stopped,  flung  down  the 
note  book  and  sat  for  a  moment  with 
his  head  buried  in  his  hands.  Then 
he  took  up  the  written  sheets  with  a 
sudden  gesture  and  tore  them  across, 
laying  them  on  the  ashes  of  the 
greasewood  fire.  He  had  matches 
in  his  pocket,  for  he  struck  one, 
watched  the  little  pile  of  papers 
quicken  into  flame  and  then,  arose  and 
came  stumblingly,  head  down,  back 
toward  the  cabin. 

The  next  morning,  when  his  g^est 
had  at  last  dropped  into  exhausted 
slumber,  Trent  arose  and  went  about 
his  extremely  simple  daily  tasks. 
There  was  something  half  white,  half 
charred,  on  the  remains  of  last  night's 
fire,  one  end  of  a  crumpled  envelope. 
He  picked  it  up  and  smoothed  it  out 
carefully,  puzzling  over  it  with  a 
thoughtful  frown.  It  was  none  of  his 
business,  but — 

"I'll  keep  it/'  he  said  to  himself. 
"I  am  going  back  to  life  on  another 
man's  money,  and  perhaps,  some  day, 
I  may  at  least  be  able  to  pay  it  back 
to  his  people," 

"Are  von  busv.  old  man?"  Jimmv 
V^anarsdale  poked  his  head  inquir- 
ingly into  the  office  where  Trent  was 
poring  over  a  formidable  pile  of 
papers.  "I  won't  bother  you  if  you 
are.  It  just  occurred  to  me  that 
Kathie  and  I  are  dining  all  bjr  our 


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329 


lone  to-night,  and  I  might  drag  you 
home  with  me." 

The  preoccupied  frown  between 
Trent's  eyes  vanished,  and  he  smiled 
crenially,  as  most  people  did  when 
Jimmy  Vanarsdale  was  around. 

**I  should  consider  myself  a  very 
lucky  fellow,"  he  said  promptly,  "but 
what  will  Miss  Vanarsdale  say  to 
such  a — " 

"Just  the  right  thing,  you  may  be 
sure.  She  always  does.  Til  stop  for 
you  later  at  your  rooms,  so  you  can't 
escape  me." 

His  head  vanished,  and  Trent  went 
back  to  his  papers  with  disturbing 
visions  blurring  their  multitudinous 
figures.  They  were  oddly  mixed 
visions,  a  girl  with  gold-lit  hair, 
Jimmy  Vanarsdale's  good-humored 
face  and  voice,  and  the  whir  and  rush 
of  New  York,  all  against  a  limitless 
background  of  yellow  desert,  through 
which  he  could  peep  into  a  tiny  val- 
ley, silent,  isolated,  where  no  white 
man  might  come  for  years,  and  in  it  a 
nervous,  haggard  man  burying  him- 
self from  the  knowledge  of  the  world. 
TTie  desert's  brown  was  off  Trent's 
face  long  since,  and  there  was  nothini^: 
but  the  remembrance  that  he  had  said 
so  to  remind  men  that  he  had  been 
an  exile  from  civilization  for  ten 
years,  and  for  eight  of  them  had  been 
a  solitary  dweller  in  the  wilderness. 
He  had  been  back  now  for  a  year  and 
a  half,  and  was  used  to  the  world 
once  more.  Tt  had  seemed  queer  at 
first,  so  oddly  intoxicating.  He  had 
a  few  distant  relations  to  whom  he 
had  civilly  made  his  existence  known, 
and  then  dropped  them,  but  for  the 
most  part  he  was  satisfied  to  mingle 
with  the  crowds  and  go  up  and  down 
busy  Broadway  or  the  Avenue,  and 


rejoice  in  all  this  busy,  hard,  tense, 
restless  life,  which  fluttered  its  rags 
so  jauntily,  and  wore  its  purple  with 
such  lavish  recklessness.  He  liked  it. 
He  had  been  reared  on  it  and  felt 
himself  a  part  of  it,  and  the  flaming 
desert,  with  its  huge  silences  and  its 
mysterious,  maddening  haze,  seemed 
to  belong  to  the  life  of  another  man. 

Back  of  him  a  roll-top  desk  clat- 
tered smartly  down,  indicating  that 
some  one  was  taking  his  departure 
for  the  day.  After  this  one  had  left 
another  man  came  in  from  an  inner 
office  and  paused  by  Trent's  desk. 

"Here  is  the  book  I  spoke  about. 
It's  a  pessimistic  little  thing,  but  tre- 
mendously clever.  He  wrote  it  when 
he  was  pretty  far  on  the  down  grade." 

"Oh,  thanks,  Overton.  This  is  the 
one  by  the  chap  you  knew  ?" 

"Yes,  Malcolm  Jeffery.  He  was  a 
brilliant  chap,  but  he  came;  to  a  queer 
end.  There  was  a  good  bit  of  mys- 
tery about  it.  Must  have  been  an  ob- 
scure sort  of  suicide,  considering  the 
facts.  Some  day  I'll  tell  you  what  I 
know  of  it.  Good-night,  don't  work 
too  long." 

The  heavy  banging  door  told  Trent 
that  he  was  alone.  He  had  still  half  an 
hour  before  he  must  go  to  his  room 
to  be  ready  for  Jimmy  when  he 
called.  He  pushed  aside  the  little 
book  by  Malcolm  Jeffery,  and  leaning 
toward  the  window,  looked  down  into 
the  busy  street  far  below,  where  the 
lights  were  coming  out  one  by  one. 
Between  hi^  oye^  and  the  points  of 
brightness  came  a  gold-lit  head,  the 
curve  of  a  daintily  rounded  chin  and 
the  light  of  sweet,  unwavering  eyes. 
He  had  known  her  for  only  a  few 
months,  ever  since  the  first  time 
Jimmy  Vanarsdale,  ever  friendly  and 


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THE  VALLEY  OF  REFUGE 


hospitable,  had  taken  him  home  one 
night  to  the  dainty  little  apartment 
where  he  and  his  sister  lived. 

Trent  turned  back  from  the  lights 
in  the  busy  streets,  and  pushed  his 
papers  back  impatiently. 

"Fm  going  to  ask  her  the  first 
chance  I  get  to  see  her  alone,''  he  said 
suddenly,  half  whispering  it.  "I 
can't  stand  this  any  longer." 

As  he  went  down  into  the  street  he 
coughed  a  little  in  the  raw  November 
air,  and  pulled  his  overcoat  closer. 
The  weather  had  been  vile;  he  must 
have  caught  cold.  But  as  he  went 
uptown  the  gold-lit  head  was  still  be- 
fore his  eyes,  so  near  that  he  seemed 
almost  to  touch  it,  and  at  the  same 
time  as  remote  as  the  shining  stars. 

Trent  settled  himself  comfortably 
in  the  nicest  of  Jimmy's  delightful 
chairs,  and  rejoiced  that  after  four 
weeks  of  manoeuvring  he  had  at  last 
found  Katherine  alone. 

"I  met  Jimmy  as  T  turned  the  cor- 
ner," he  said  twinkling.  "He  held 
me  up  with  a  lot  of  hypocritical  re- 
grets because  he  had  another  engage- 
ment, and  then  incriminated  himself 
by  admitting  that  he  was  bound  for 
Central  Park  West." 

"Dear  Jimmy !"  laughed  Katherine, 
knowing  well  who  lived  in  that  direc- 
tion, and  picturing  just  how  Jimmy 
had  looked  as  he  had  said  it.  Trent 
thought  her  unutterably  charming  as 
she  laughed  out  in  that  way. 

"Jimmy  goes  up  to  Central  Park 
West  much  too  often  for  his  peace  of 
mind,"  he  continued  sagely.  "He  will 
have  a  fine  case  of  nerves  before  he 
gets  through." 

Katherine'^;  laugh  bubbled  forth 
pc^ain. 


"Why,  how  well  this  wise  g^tle- 
man  understands  the  symptoms !  Tell 
me  more,  it  is  quite  exciting!" 

"I've  been  through  it,"  said  Trent 
grimly,  glad  to  get  it  out  at  any  cost, 
and  then  he  leaned  forward  suddenly, 
the  light  of  eagerness  and  determina- 
tion in  his  eyes.    It  was  now  or  never. 

"Don't  you  know  that?"  he  asked 
earnestly. 

She  looked  at  him  swiftly,  some- 
thing like  appeal  in  her  own  eyes,  and 
then  lowered  the  lids  as  though  his 
intent  look  hurt  her.  How  could  she 
say  it,  so  as  to  give  him  the  least 
pain  ?  As  big  and  steady  and  cool  as 
he  seemed,  there  was  something  about 
him  which  always  called  forth  a  little 
aching  pity  from  her. 

"I  love  you."  It  was  like  him,  this 
brief  and  forceful  directness  of  speech 
from  which  one  could  not  escape.  "I 
can't  say  more  than  that,  because  it  is 
all  right  there  in  those  three  words. 
I  love  you — Katherine — God  knows 
how  much." 

His  voice  dropped  to  a  deep  whis- 
per, caught  huskily  in  his  throat,  and 
he  coughed  a  little.  It  was  annoying, 
that  cold. 

"Are  you  going  to  send  me  away? 
Don*t  do  that.  I  will  wait  any  time 
you  say,  if  you  will  give  me  just  hope 
enough  to  live  on." 

"And  if  I  could  not?" 

Her  voice  was  very  pitiful,  but  it 
was  love  he  had  asked,  not  pity,  and 
his  lips  straightened  into  a  tight  line 
of  self-repression. 

"I  will  tell  you  something,  if  you 
will  let  me,  because  you  are  my  friend, 
and  I  want  you  to  understand.  It  is 
not  a  thing  I  can  speak  of  often,  even 
to  Jimmy." 

Trent  nodded,  his  eyes  fixed  with 


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THE  VALLEY  OF  REFUGE 


331 


gloomy  intentness  on  her  face.  What 
did  it  matter,  now? 

'*Two  years  ago,  Mr.  Trent,  I  was 
to  have  married.  There  was  one 
great  drawback,  but  we  both  hoped  it 
could  be  overcome.  Then  one  day  I 
received  a  letter  from  him,  saying  that 
he  had  tried  and  failed  miserably,  that 
he  was  a  blot  on  the  world  where  he 
had  meant  to  shine,  and  that  I  must 
forget  him  as  unworthy.  He  simply 
disappeared  from  our  knowledge. 
They  said  it  was  suicide;  I  do  not 
know." 

Trent  growled  something  inarticu- 
late in  his  throat.  The  subdued  suf- 
fering in  her  face  filled  him  with 
wrath  against  the  brute  who  had 
caused  it.  At  what  effort  to  herself 
she  had  told  him  this  he  might  well 
imagine,  but,  without  meeting  his 
eyes,  she  continued  steadily : 

"We  may  not  judge  him.  His 
temptations  were  not  ours.  Years 
ago,  my  friend,  when  his  ambition 
kept  him  deep  in  exacting  brain  work 
almost  day  and  night,  when  he  was 
building  himself  a  splendid  name  for 
so  young  a  man,  his  doctor  gave  him 
opiates,  now  and  again,  because  his 
nerves  were  in  tatters,  his  brain  al- 
most crazed  with  insomnia.  He 
would  not  leave  his  precious  work,  so 
the  opiates  came  more  frequently. 
You  can  guess  the  rest.  When  he 
found  the  hold  it  had  on  him  he 
fought  it,  but  it  was  stronger  than  he, 
and  then,  because  he  would  not  drag 
others  down  with  him,  he  sank  from 
sight  alone.  You  understand  now, 
why  I  want  you  to  be  my  friend,  only 
my  friend?" 

"Yes." 

The  monosyllable  was  eloquent. 
Trent  pulled  himself  together,  arose, 


and  held  out  his  hand.  He  might  as 
well  go. 

"May  I  ask  you  one  question?" 

"If  you  wish." 

"Was  he — was  his  name  Jeffery?" 

"Yes."  The  giri's  surprise,  half 
shrinking,  flashed  over  her  face  as  she 
realized  that  the  bitter,  shameful  story 
was  still  hawked  about,  so  that  it  had 
come  even  to  Trent,  a  stranger. 

"Thank  you." 

He  said  good-by  abruptly  and  left 
her.  Out  in  the  street  he  laughed 
grimly  as  he  surveyed  the  wreck  of 
his  hopes.  What  a  fool  he  had  been ! 
Overton  had  told  him  of  a  woman  in 
the  case,  but  he  had  mentioned  no 
names,  possibly  because  of  Trent's 
friendship  with  Jimmy  Vanarsdale. 
He  had  told  other  things,  too,  which 
she  either  did  not  know  or  would  not 
tell  to  Jeffery's  hurt,  how  deep  in  the 
mire  the  drug  had  dragged  the  wreck 
of  a  brilliant  man,  what  a  madman 
he  had  become,  sane  only  in  realizing 
his  disgrace  and  loss  and  suffering, 
and  what  an  unvoiced  relief  it  had 
been  to  his  friends  to  think  that  the 
poor  chap  must  surely  be  dead. 

As  he  passed  under  a  street  light, 
Trent's  face  looked  gray  and  weary. 
He  had  been  feeling  rather  listless  and 
tired  of  late,  anyhow,  probably  the 
late  hours  of  city  life,  but  a  few 
nights'  sleep  would  put  him  right. 
As  a  sharp  gust  of  wind  struck  him 
he  coughed  heavily,  caught  his  breath 
and  coughed  again.  He  wiped  his 
lips  impatiently  with  his  handker- 
chief, and  when  he  took  it  away  there 
was  a  little  streak  on  its  whiteness.  He 
looked  at  it  half  in  wonder,  and  read 
its  message  without  thequiverof  alash. 

After  all,  it  did  not  matter. 


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THE  VALLEY  OF  REFUGE 


It  had  been  weeks  since  Katherine 
had  seen  Trent.  He  had  appeared 
haggard  and  sick  the  last  time  they 
had  met,  and  he  had  looked  at  her 
with  such  an  odd  intentness  that  she 
felt  uneasy.  Still  it  was  something 
of  a  shock  when  Jimmy  came  in  with 
troubled  face  and  told  her  he  had  just 
heard  that  Trent  had  been  in  a  hos- 
pital several  weeks. 

"His  old  trouble,  they  tell  me.  I 
suppose  it  was  bound  to  come  back." 

He  went  to  see  him  the  next  morn- 
ing, and  came  back  looking  as  de- 
pressed as  Jimmy  seldom  was  known 
to  be.  Trent  had  asked  to  see  her; 
wouldn't  she  go?  That  same  after- 
noon Trent  opened  his  languid  eyes 
to  see  her  come  in  softly,  unattended. 

"I  knew  you  would  come,"  was  all 
he  said,  and  she  smiled  back  brightly, 
to  hide  her  pity  and  dismay  at  the 
ghastly  change  in  him.  She  slipped 
her  cool,  firm  hand  into  the  feverish 
and  gaunt  one  he  extended.  The 
flesh  had  gone  off  him  frightfully, 
leaving  sharp  protruding  bones,  and 
hollow  eye  sockets  from  which  his 
eyes  gleamed  with  relentless  fire. 

**I  want  to  ask  you  something,"  he 
said  abruptly  as  she  sat  down,  and 
then  hurried  on  as  though  he  feared 
his  strength  of  purpose  and  body 
would  desert  him.  *'Don't  you  think, 
Katherine, — you  will  let  me  call  you 
Katherine  to-day,  won't  you? — don't 
you  think  there  may  come  a  time  in  a 
man's  life  when  it  is  better  to  break 
his  given  word  than  to  keep  it?" 

She  looked  half  wondering,  half 
apprehensive,  as  though  he  might  be 
delirious,  but  her  voice  was  as  gently 
serene  as  before. 

"I  think  it  may  happen.  Not 
often,  of  course,  but  it  may." 


"And  suppose  it  might  be  ahnost  a 
matter  of  life  or  death,  yet  the  man 
who  had  given  his  word  could  not 
know  which  it  would  be  in  the  end?** 

"It  would  not  be  easy  to  decide. 
Life  and  death  is  such  a  fearful  power 
to  hold,  dear  friend,  but  don't  you 
think,  usually,  he  would  surely  have 
some  conviction  of  what  the  better 
part  would  be?" 

Katherine  spoke  cautiously,  for  she 
felt  herself  on  dangerous  ground. 
If  she  could  help  him, — but  it  was  so 
hard  to  help  in  the  utter  darkness. 

Trent  suddenly  buried  his  head  in 
the  pillow,  shook  for  several  minutes 
with  coughing,  and  came  out  out  of  it 
exhausted  and  limp.  As  he  regained 
his  breath  he  fumbled  around  and 
brought  out  a  flat  package. 

"In  there,"  he  said  weakly,  and  she 
opened  it,  and  saw  something  care- 
fully protected  between  two  bits  of 
cardboard,  the  torn  and  charred  end 
of  an  envelope,  showing  a  few  dimly 
pencilled  letters  in  a  writing  whose 
well-remembered  peculiarities  sent  the 
blood  humming  dizzily  in  her  brain, 
sdale, 
eet, 

rk  City. 
'  "Oh,  you  have  seen  him !  Where 
did  you  get  it  ?  Tell  me !"  The  tears 
were  blinding  her  eyes  and  choking 
her  voice.  She  buried  her  face  in  her 
hands,  weeping  softly,  and  so  did  not 
see  how  sharply  he  winced  under  her 
grief  for  that  other^man.  In  the  next 
instatit  she  remembered,  and  dried  her 
eyes  remorsefully. 

"Oh,  forgive  me,  but — ^two  years, 
and  all  the  doubt  and  dread!  Tell 
me,  did  he — is  he — " 

"You  will  find  him  in  southern  Ari- 
zona, in  a  little  valley  in  the  Chihui- 


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THE  VALLEY  OF  REFUGE 


333 


cahui  mountains."  Trent's  exhausted 
voice  was  steady  with  the  calm  of  vic- 
tory won.  "I  left  him  there.  I  did 
not  even  know  his  name,  but  he  made 
me  swear  I  would  never  speak  of  him 
to  any  man  or  woman.  I  think  it  was 
better  to  break  it.  Your  name,  you 
know,  the  envelope,  what  you  told 
me, — I  put  it  all  tc^ether." 

He  stopped,  breathless,  and  she 
stroked  his  gaunt  hand  pitifully  and 
struggled  between  joy  and  grief  as 
the  stricken  man  took  fresh  grip  on 
himself  to  tell  her  the  rest  little  by 
little,  between  painful  gasps. 

"I  wanted  to  pay  him  back,"  he  fin- 
ished limply,  "but  I  seem  to  be  done 
for  now." 

What  more  she  said  to  him  there, 
no  one  but  herself  and  Trent  ever 
knew.  It  was  something  she  could 
not  have  told  to  any  one,  but  when 
she  came  out,  an  hour  later,  the  tears 
still  shone  on  her  lashes,  and  Trent 
lay  in  the  slumber  of  weakness,  with 
more  peace  on  his  wasted  face  than  it 
had  known  for  weeks. 

In  the  night  he  died,  and  it  was 
Jimmy  Vanarsdale  who  came  to  the 
hospital  the  next  morning,  and  asked 
the  privilege  of  a  friend  to  bury  the 
dead  man  as  one  of  his  own  people. 

In  a  narrow  strip  of  valley  in 
southern  Arizona  a  man  sat  listlessly 
and  stared  at  the  grim  rockiness  of 
the  mountains  which  hemmed  him  in. 
It  was  now  two  years  since  he  had 
pronounced  his  own  sentence  of  exile. 
Wliy  he  had  come  to  Arizona,  of  all 
places,  he  could  not  have  told,  unless 
it  was  because  this  was  the  last  place 
where  any  of  his  friends  would  have 
looked  for  him.  The  madness  of  an 
opium-crazed    brain    had    sent    him 


across  the  man-hungry  desert,  a 
stranger  and  alone,  and  a  wisdom 
which  turned  his  own  to  mocking  had 
brought  him  out  of  its  living  death. 
He  had  even  sent  his  horse  away  by 
Trent,  cutting  off  all  chances  of  re- 
turn to  the  world  and  the  temptation 
which  pulled  him  back  with  insistent 
fingers.  No  man  would  ever  know 
how  strong  that  was,  nor  how  he  had 
lain  on  the  ground  night  after  night 
and  cried  out  in  agony  to  the  black 
mountains  looking  down  upon  him. 
But  that  had  been  two  years  ago,  and 
was  gone.  The  haggard  man  of  that 
time  was  strong  and  brown  and  mus- 
cular, with  eye  and  hand  as  steady  as 
the  rays  of  the  sun  out  there  on  the 
desert. 

He  lifted  his  head  and  listened. 
Hoof  beats  were  in  his  ears,  coming 
nearer.  He  wenf  toward  them  on  a 
half  run,  glad  to  see  either  friend  or 
enemy  in  his  loneliness.  A  desert- 
exhausted  man  reeled  thankfully  out 
of  the  saddle  as  he  approached. 

"I've  come  to  take  you  home,  old 
man,"  he  said  simply,  and  laughed 
unsteadily  as  he  took  Jeffery's  brown 
hand  and  wrung  it  in  joyous  relief. 

"You  have  come  to — I  don't  un- 
derstand 1" 

Only  Jimmy  Vanarsdale,  who  had 
known  him  so  long,  would  have  seen 
how  near  Jeffery  was  to  breaking 
down. 

"I  mean  it,"  he  said  firmly,  leaning 
limp  and  weary  against  his  horse,  but 
losing  not  a  line  of  the  change  in  Jef- 
fery's  face.  "Kathie  sent  me  for 
you.  She  came  as  far  as  Fd  let  her, 
and  she  is  waiting  for  me  to  bring 
you  back." 

Back  of  them,  the  two  half-breed 
guides  Jimmy  had  brought  looked  on 


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334 


THE  SCEPTIC 


in  stolid  wonder,  and  calmly  went  to 
work  to  turn  loose  their  horses  and 
the  extra  one  brought  for  Jeffery's 
use. 

In  the  first  paleness  of  dawn  the 
next  morning,  as  they  were  starting 
away,  Jeffery  pulled  in  his  horse  for 
a  last  look  at  the  little  valley  which 
had  sheltered  poor  Trent  for  eight 
years  and  himself  for  two,  which  had 
saved  him,  body  and  soul,  for  better 
things. 

"Good-by,  Valley  of  Refuge,"  he 
said  gravely,  and  turned  back  to 
\  anarsdale.  "It  was  worth  while, 
Jimmy.  I  have  fought  out  my  fight 
alone,  and  I  have  won.  I  am  going 
back." 


Jimmy  nodded  as  soberly  as  he. 

**You  have  done  splendidly.  God 
knows  I  didn't  have  a  hope  of  finding 
\ou  alive,  but  I  did  it  for  Kathie.  If 
— forgive  me,  Jeff — if  such  a  thing 
could  happen  again — " 

The  older  man  turned  on  him  a 
face  black  with  tlie  wrath  of  self 
scorn. 

"There  will  be  no  again,"'  he  said 
sternly,  and  then  looked  ahead  of  him 
with  softening  eyes,  out  through  the 
narrow  opening  of  the  valley  and  into 
the  wide  desert  dawning,  vague  with 
mystery  and  vast  silences,  but  beyond 
which  lay  the  world,  his  work,  and 
the  one  woman  who  still  believed  in 
him. 


The  Sceptic 

By  Edwin  Carlile  Litsey. 


WHAT  night  is  his  I     What  narrow  scope  to  range ! 
Prisoned  within  Self's  dwarfing,  unlit  cell. 
Soul-pinions  clipped — never  to  know  a  change — 

In  Godless  gloom  he  must  forever  dwell. 
Barred  from  the  mercies  cast  with  Croesus  hand 

By  Him  whose  promises  are  built  on  Truth ; 
Roaming,  an  outcast,  in  an  arid  land. 

Dried  up,  and  sealed,  the  holy  founts  of  youth ! 
A  stranger  to  the  truths  which  urge  the  soul 

To  struggle  up  the  stony  hills  of  hope ; 
An  alien  to  the  balm  the  faithful  know. 

Who,  after  battle,  rest  on  Zion's  slope ! 
To  heights  of  holiness  he  cannot  aspire ; 
Doomed  now  and  aye  to  creep  amid  the  mire  I 


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?*•fr4*^^HMHH^*•f^*^^^  *l*^t'*^*l^ 


Men  and  Events  of  the  Day 


yOO<fC^O<iCi^OC<>OCl^^ 


The  Oldest  Pensioner  of  the  Revolution 


A  gentle,  sweet-faced  old  lady,  won- 
derfully well-preserved  for  her  years, 
w^ith  a  row  of  tiny,  silvery  curls  show- 
ing beneath  the  border  of  her  lace  cap, 
— intelligent,  cheerful  and  bright, — 
such  is  Mrs.  Hannah  Newell  Barrett, 


by  every  comfort,  and  all  that  a  loving 
care  can  give  her,  this  wonderful  old 
lady  is  peacefully  drawing  to  the  close 
of  her  long  life. 

Pier  father   was    Noah    Harrod    o: 
Lunenburg,  Mass.,  who  enlisted  in  the 


Mrs.  Hannah  Newell  Barrett 


103  years  old,  the  oldest  pensioner, 
and  the  oldest  living  daughter  of  a 
Revolutionary  soldier.  Mrs.  Barrett 
makes  her  home  with  her  son-in-law, 
Mr.  James  F.  Heustis,  at  425  Massa- 
chusetts Avenue,  Boston.  Surrounded 


Revolutionary  army  at  the  early  age 
of  eighteen.  She  married  when  twenty 
years  old,  and  her  husband  died  only 
a  few  years  after  they  had  celebrated 
the  golden  anniversary  of  their  mar- 
riage.   During  her  early  life  she  lived 


3^5 


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336 


MEN  AND  EVENTS 


on  Pinckney  Street,  and  was  a  r^^lar 
attendant  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Barrett's 
Unitarian  Church  at  the  comer  of 
Chambers  and  McLean  Streets.  She 
fcas  vivid  recollections  of  the  West 
End  from  the  time  when  that  district 
was  nothing  more  than  a  large  farm 
or  cow  pasture,  atid  also  of  the  Back 
Bay  district  in  its  state  of  primitive 
nature. 

Save  for  a  slight  deafness,  Mrs. 
Barrett  has  all  her  faculties.  She  is 
«till  able  to  read  a  little  and  to  knit, 
although  her  eyesight  has  lately  beg^n 
to  fail  her.  There  could  be  no  better 
commentary  on  the  state  of  her  health 
than  to  say  that  she  eats  heartily.  She 
is  fond  of  company,  and  is  genuinely 
interested  in  all  that  goes  on  around 
her.  Her  home  is  a  mecca  for  visitors, 
although  all  who  would  see  her,  it  is 
needless  to  say,  are  not  allowed  to  do 
so;  her  family  guard  her  carefully 
from  over-fatigue.  On  her  birthdays 
she  is  besieged  by  reporters,  and  it  has 
long  ceased  to  be  a  novelty  for  this 
famous  old  lady  to  be  "written  up." 

She  is  an  honorary  member  of  the 
Boston  Tea  Party  Chatper  of  the 
D.  A.  R. 

The  nearest  rival  to  Mrs.  Barrett  as 
a  daughter  of  the  Revolution  who  has 


yet  been  discovered  in  Boston,  is  just 
thirty  years  younger — Miss  Hannah 
Manson,  who  lives  at  46  Princeton 
Street,  East  Boston.  Miss  Manson  is 
not  only  a  daughter,  but  a  grand- 
daughter of  the  Revolution,  her  father 
and  two  grandfathers  having  served 
through  that  war.  Miss  Manson's 
father  was  Private  Nehemiah  Manson 
of  Scituate,  who  enlisted  in  1777  at 
the  age  of  sixteen,  and  served  through 
the  war,  receiving  his  honorable  dis- 
charge in  1783. 

Manchester,  New  Hampshire, 
claims  the  distinction  of  having  an- 
other daughter  of  the  Revolution  in  the 
person  of  Mrs.  Sally  Glover,  who  on 
September  26  attained  the  age  of 
ninety- four.  She  was  bom  in  Deer- 
field,  September  26,  1809,  the  daughter 
of  Parker  Chase  who  served  under 
Washington.  Until  recently  she  has 
been  able  to  walk  out  frequently  with 
the  aid  of  a  cane.  Her  memory  is  still 
retentive,  particularly  so  regarding 
events  in  her  early  years. 

Mrs.  GloVer*s  grandfather,  Parker 
Chase,  was  one  of  four  brothers  who 
settled  near  the  old  centre  in  Deerfield 
about  1770,  and  all  the  land  then  taken 
up  by  them  still  remains  in  the  Chase 
families. 


Last  of  America's    Old  Guard" 


Col.  John  L.  Qem,  who  sailed  for 
Manila  October  i,  to  take  up  his 
duties  as  Chief  Quartermaster  of  the 
Division  of  the  Philippine  Islands, 
will  be  the  last  officer  of  the  "Old 
Guard" — the  volunteers  of  the  Repub- 
lic— to  retire  from  the  regular  army. 
He  is  the  same  little  "Johnny  Clem," 


who,  40  years  ago,  won  the  title  of 
"Dmmmer  Boy  of  Chickamauga." 
According  to  one  historian,  he  was 
"probably  the  youngest  person  who 
ever  bore  arms  in  battle." 

Col.  Clem  was  born  in  Newark, 
Ohio,  in  185 1,  and  having  early  de- 
cided upon  a  military  career,  at  the 


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MEN  AND  EVENTS 


337 


tender  age  of  ten,  and  after  repeated 
rebuffs,  he  was  mustered  into  the  ser- 
vice as  drummer  boy.  Johnny  Clem 
seems  not  to  have  known  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  ''fear."  At  the  bloody 
battle  of  Shiloh  his  drum  was 
smashed  by  a  piece  of  shell.  At 
Chickamauga,  having  exchanged  his 
drum  for  a  musket — which  had  been 
shortened  for  his  use — he  killed  the 
Confederate  colonel  who  had  seized 
him  and  had  demanded  his  surren- 
der. For  his  undaunted  valor  he 
was  made  a  sergeant  by  Rosecrans. 
The  tiny  gunner  did  duty  at  a  number 
of  other  battles,  and  also  served  a 
term  of  sixty-three  days  in  captivity  to 
the  rebels.  At  the  end  of  the  war  he 
was  honorably  mustered  out,  and  then 
went  to  school  like  other  boys.  He 
graduated  from  the  Newark  High 
School  in  1870. 

In  1 871  he  was  appointed  to  the 
regular  army  as  second  lieutenant,  and 
promoted  to  be  first  lieutenant  in  1874. 
He  graduated  from  the  artillery 
school  at  Fortress  Monroe  in  1875. 
In    1882  he  was   made   captain   and 


Col.  John  L.  Clem,  U.  S.  A. 

assistant  quartermaster,  and  has 
served  as  quartermaster  in  numerous 
posts.  In  1895  he  was  appointed 
major;  in  1902  he  was  promoted  to  a 
lieutenant  colonelcy,  and  in  August, 
1903,  he  became  colonel. 


Two  New  Symphony  Players 


The  famous  Boston  Symphony  Or- 
chestra is  being  congratulated  on  its 
two  new  members.  Rudolph  Krasselt, 
the  new  first  violoncello,  will  make  his 
first  appearance  in  America  at  the 
second  concert  of  the  organization,  as 
his  year  of  compulsory  military  ser- 
vice in  the  German  army  is  only  just 
expiring,  and  he  will  not  be  free  in 
time  to  play  at  the  first  concert. 


Mr.  Krasselt  is  one  of  a  family 
noted  for  musical  ability.  His  father 
is  concertmeister  of  the  orchestra  at 
Baden  Baden,  and  one  of  his  brothers 
is  concertmeister  at  Weimer.  He 
himself  has  been  first  cellist  of  the 
Berlin  Philharmonic  Society,  and  he 
has  played  with  great  success  in  quar- 
tet concerts  in  Berlin  and  Vienna.  His 
last   engagement   before   joining  the 


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iW.  Fernandez  Arbos, 

First  Violin  and  Concert  Master,  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra 


33S 


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MEN  AND  EVENTS 


339 


army  was  as  first  cellist  of  the  Vienna 
Opera  House. 

Much  interest  is  being  felt,  in  mu- 
sical circles,  in  Senor  Fernandez  Ar- 
bos,  the  new  concert  master  and  first 
violin  of  the  Symphony  Orchestra. 

Senor  Arbos  was  born  in  Madrid 
about  forty  years  ago,  and  has  had  a 
brilliant  career  in  Europe  as  a  musi- 
cian. When  very  young,  he  studied 
under  Jesus  Monasterio  at  the  Madrid 
Conservatoire  and  later  under  Vieux- 
temps  at  the  Brussels  Conservatoire, 
where,  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  he  gained 
the  prix  dlionneur.  Three  years,  also, 
he  gave  to  study  under  Joachim  at  Ber- 
lin, a  man  whose  style  of  playing  was 
diametrically  opposed  to  the  Vieux- 
temps  school.  He  was  for  a  time 
leader  of  the  Berlin  Philharmonic 
Society's  orchestra,  and  afterwards 
was  professor  of  the  violin  at  the 
Hamburg  Conservatoire.  At  the  ex- 
press desire  of  the  queen  of  Spam, 
he  accepted  the  same  post  at  the 
Madrid  Conservatoire,  but  later  relin- 
quished it  to  go  to  London,  where  he 
appeared  with  great  success  at  a 
series  of  concerts  at  St.  James's  Hall. 
Since  then  London  has  practically 
claimed  Senor  Arbos  for  her  own.  He 
gained  a  great  reputation  not  only  in 
concert  work,  but  also  as  a  teacher. 
He  has  been  chief  professor  of  the 
violin  at  the  Royal  College  of  Music, 
and  a  member  of  the  board  of  profes- 
sors; an  honorary  member  of  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Music  and  an 
examiner  of  the  associated  board. 


Rudolph  Kpasselt, 

First  Violoncello,  Boston  Symphony  Orchestra 


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44 


The  Tale  of  Tantiusques"* 


By  George  H.  Haynes. 


THIS  paper  presents  some  in- 
cidents from  the  story  of 
what  is  probably  the  oldest 
living  mine  in  the  United 
States.  It  had  been  visited  by  the 
Indians  from  time  immemorial,  and 
was  by  them  made  known  to  the  Eng- 
lish in  1633,  and  it  has  been  worked 
intermittently  for  more  than  two 
centuries  and  a  half.  Up-to-date 
methods  and  the  equipment  of 
modem  mining  engineering  are  to-day 
developing  this  ancient  property.  The 
mine  is  situated  in  a  tract  of  land,  still 
almost  as  wild  and  picturesque  as  if  it 
had  never  been  trodden  by  the  foot 
of  man,  in  the  southern  part  of  Stur- 
bridge,  Massachusetts,  within  a  mile 
of  the  Connecticut  boundary  line. 

In  granting  the  charter  for  the  Mas- 
sachusetts Bay  Colony  the  attention 
of  Charles  I  was  fixed  not  so  much 
upon  the  trading  privileges  or  the 
forms  of  government  to  be  granted  to 
his  restive  subjects,  as  upon  possible 
sources  of  revenue  for  himself.  In  the 
Petition  of  Right  the  King  had  just 
renounced  arbitrary  taxes,  but  he  was 
resolved  not  to  be  dependent  upon 
grants  by  Parliament.  Accordingly 
by  far  the  most  emphatic  provision  of 
the  charter,  four  times  repeated  in 
substantially  the  same  words,  was  the 
insistence  that  the  lands  granted  to 
the  patentees  should  yield  the  King 

"the  fifte  parte  of  the  oare  of  goulde  and 
silver   which    should    from   tyme   to  tyme, 


and  at  all  tymes  there  after,  happen  to  be 
found,  gotten,  had,  and  obteyned  in,  att,  or 
within  any  of  the  saide  lands,  lymytts,  terri- 
tories, and  precints." 

The  early  colonists  shared  the 
King's  hope  that  El  Dorado  was  to  be 
discovered  in  New  England.  Fore- 
most of  them  all,  both  in  his  knowl- 
edge of  the  natural  sciences  and  in  his 
zeal  for  developing  all  possible  sources 
of  mineral  wealth  in  the  new  land,  was 
John  Winthrop,  the  younger,  who  had 
followed  his  father,  Governor  Win- 
throp, to  Boston,  in  1631.  His  min- 
ing ventures  were  many,  and  claimed 
his  attention  through  a  long  series  of 
years.  In  1641  he  revisited  England, 
and  upon  his  return,  two  years  later, 
he  brought  over  workmen,  mining  im- 
plements and  £  1,000  fpr  the  establish- 
ing of  iron  works.  The  CJeneral  Court 
granted  to  him  and  to  his  associates  in 
this  enterprise  large  tracts  of  land  and 
extensive  monopoly  privileges  and  ex- 
emptions ;  some  months  later  the  Court 
passed  very  encouraging  resolutions, 
which  took  notice  of  the  £1,000  hav- 
ing been  already  disbursed,  and  then, 
— as  if  in  further  encouragement  of 


*This  study  would  have  been  impossible  but  for  the 
patient  work  of  Mr.  R.  C.  Winthrop,  Jr.,  of  Boston,  in 
editing  and  arranginit:  for  preservation  nearly  aoo  manu- 
script documents  relating  to  the  early  history  of  the  mine, 
selected  from  the  unpublished  papers  of  the  Winthrop 
fomily.  These  documents,  mounted  in  a  single  volume 
bearing  the  title.  "The  Tale  of  Tantiusc^ues,'*  Mr.  Win- 
throp has  recentljr  presented  to  the  American  Antiquarian 
Society.  The  writer  is  indebted  to  many  others  for  assist- 
ance, especially  to  the  late  Mr.  Frederick  Tudor,  of 
Brookline,  who  collected  many  interesting  data  reUtinr  to 
the  mine  while  it  was  in  the  hands  of  ms  father,  and  to 
Mr.  L.  B.  Chase  of  Sturbridge,  the  first  to  make  careful 
studies  in  the  early  history  of  the  mine.  The  photographs 
are  by  Mr.  Carl  H.  An. 


340 


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"THE  TALE  OF  TANTIUSQUES" 


the  younger  Winthrop*s  enterprise, — 
there  follows  immediately  this  decree : 

"Mr.  John  Winthrope,  Junior,  is  granted 
the  hill  at  Tantousq,  about  60  miles  west- 
ward in  which  the  black  leade  is,  and  lib- 
erty to  purchase  some  land  there  of  the 
Indians." 

The  existence  of  deposits  of  graph- 
ite in  that  region  had  been  known 
early  in  the  Colony's  history.  In 
i633»    John    Oldham,    of    interesting 


First  Indian  Deed 


memory  in  connection  with  both  the 
Plymouth  and  the  Massachusetts  Bay 
Colonies,  made  the  trip  overland  to 
Connecticut,  trading  with  the  Indians. 
He  returned  with  a  stock  of  hemp  and 
beaver,  and  brought  also  "some  black 
lead,  wherof  the  Indians  told  him 
there  was  a  whole  rock."  Such  a  dis- 
covery, thus  noted  by  Governor  Win- 
throp,  could  not  fail  to  arrest  the  at- 
tention of  his  son,  eager  for  all 
mineralogical  researches. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  grant  by 
the  General  Court  seems  merely  to 
have  given  validity  to  what  was  al- 
ready well  under  way.  Five  weeks 
earlier,  William  Pynchon  of  Spring- 
field had  written  to  Stephen  Day,  the 
first  printer  of  Cambridge,  telling  him 
of  having  commended  him  to  the  good 
graces  of  a  certain  Indian,  with  the 


The    First   Indian    Deed    of    TANTIUS 

QUES.    J644. 
This  is  to  testyfi  to  horn  it 
may  concaren  that   I  webockchcn 
and  nou  mons  hot  haf  soulled  for 
and  in  concedourachoun  of  suche 
goods  as  I  haf  resayefid  of 
Mr  John   Winthrop  ten  miles 
round  about  the  hills  where  the 
metwes    (metal?)    lies   called    blak   lead, 
and  for  M  Wenthrops  pesabe 
11  in  joy  mat  of  it  we  bind 
oursallefs  and  heyers  for  ever 
to  the  trew  pourforemans  of 
the  pramisis  and  to  this  I 
sat  my  hand  this  prasunt  day 
and  dat  Selled  and  dalefourd 
d  in  the  prasuns  of  us 
8  day  of  8  month  1644: 

the  mark  of  weboke  X  shen 

the  mak  of  nou  X  mons  hot 

wetnas  the  mark  X  of  Puchdat 
Thomas 

wetnas        Thomas  King 
Steven 
Day 
Richard  Smith 


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Second  Indian  Deed 


assurance  that  the  Governor  was  send- 
ing this  man,  Day,  *'to  serch  for  some- 
thing in  the  ground,  not  for  black  lead 
as  they  suppose  but  for  some  other 
mettel."  But  Day's  prospecting  tour 
in  Winthrop*s  interest  was  already  be- 
gun, for  on  the  very  day  of  the  writ- 
ing of  this  letter  he  had  secured  for 
Winthrop  from  Webucksham,  the 
sachem  of  the  region,  "for  and  in  con- 
sideration of  sundry  goods"  the  grant 
of  "ten  miles  round  about  the  hills 
where  the  metal  lies  thats  called  black 
lead."  Only  two  days  before  the 
Court's  grant,  as  if  to  make  assurance 
doubly  sure.  Day  obtained  another 
deed  of  sale,  or  rather  confirmation, 
from  Nodawahunt,  the  uncle  of  the 
sachem;    by  this  instrument    he  sur- 


rendered  whatever  right  he  had  "in 
that  place  for  Ten  Miles."    The  deed 


The  Second  Indian  Deed  of  TANTIUSQUES.     1644 


These  are  to  testify  that  I  Nodawahunt 
owner  of  the  land   of  Tantiusques   where 
the  blacklead  hill  is  doo  sell  and  give  up, 
&  surrender  all  my  right  in  that  place  for 
ten  miles  to  John  Winthrop  the  yonger  of 
Mistick,  and  doo  confirme  the  former  sale 
of  the  blacklead  hill  &  the  land  about  it 
at  Tantiusques,  by  Webucksh  unto  the  said 
Joh  Winthrop,  &  am  fully  satisfied  for  the 
same  witnesse  my  hand 
this  nth  of  Nov.  1644, 
X 
the  mark  of  Nodawahunt 
Stephen  Day 
Thomas  King 
gorgis  X  marek 


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"THE  TALE  OF  TANTIUSQUES" 


was  sealed  by  pasting  back  a  flap  of 
the  paper  over  a  pinch  of  Tantiusques 
black  lead.  As  if  in  doubt  whetlier 
these  deeds  would  be  binding,  since 
they  were  obtained  before  the  action 
of  the  General  Court,  two  months 
later  Winthrop  caused  the  whole 
transaction  to  be  gone  through  again, 
with  much  greater  formality  in  the 
observance  of  both  Indian  and  Eng- 
lish customs.  This  time,  in  con- 
sideration of  "Ten  Belts  of  Wampam- 
peeg  with  many  Blankets  &  Cotes  of 
Trucking  Cloth  and  Sundry  other 
goods,"  there  were  granted  to  Win- 
throp 

"All  the  Black  Lead  Mines  and  all  other 
Places  of  Mines  and  Minerals  with  all  the 
Lands  in  the  Wilderness  lying  North  and 
West,  East  and  South  Round  the  said 
Black  Lead  Hills  for  Ten  Miles  Each  way 
only  Reserving  for  my  selfe  and  people 
Liberty  of  Fishing  and  Hunting  and  con- 
venient Planting  in  the  said  Grounds  and 
Ponds  and  Rivers." 

Although  the  mine  figured  largely 
in  his  correspondence  and  several  con- 
tracts were  drawn  up  for  the  digging 
of  the  lead,  apparently  nothing  was 
accomplished  for  a  dozen  years.  In 
the  fall  of  1657  Mr.  Winthrop  at  last 
interested  in  the  mine  some  Boston 
men  of  wealth  and  influence,  one  of 
whom  was  already  associated  with 
him  in  the  Lynn  and  Braintree  iron 
works.  In  the  following  spring  ac- 
tual work  began.  The  new  partners 
were  eager  to  see  prompt  returns. 
From  the  first  the  problem  of  trans- 
portation was  a  puzzling  one;  they 
importuned  Winthrop  to 

"tack  such  a  corce,  as  what  is  or  shal  be 
diged  of  it  you  wil  spedyly  git  to  the  water 
side." 


Again  they  suggest: 

"ffor  the  caredge  of  the  leade  to  the  water 
side,  Rich.  Ffellowes  is  very  willinge  to 
ingage;  first,  by  goeinge  a  tume  or  two 
vpon  tryall,  &  after  to  goe  vpon  more  ser- 
ten  price;  wee  conseiue  hee  is  fitcd  for 
horses,  &  shall  leaue  him  to  your  selfe  for 
conclution,  which  wee  desior  you  wold 
hasten,  conseiueinge  it  will  doe  best  to 
tracke  the  way  before  the  weades  bee  gronc 
high." 

The  mine  was  so  remote  that  it  was 
hard  to  get  workmen  to  go  up  into 
the  wilderness  or  to  stay  there.  From 
time  to  time  Winthrop  is  urged  to 
send  men,  *'for  they  which  are  theare 
are  weary  of  beinge  theare/'  but  when 
at  last  one  man  came,  under  Win- 
throp's  direct  employ,  they  could  only 
report :  "his  hoi  work  and  study  haue 
bin  to  mack  trobel  and  hinder  oure 
men."  Called  upon  to  act  as  peace- 
maker, Winthrop  drew  up  a  contract 
for  a  period  of  ^bout  two  years  be- 
tween his  partners  and  the  two  work- 
men ;  they  were  to  dig  or  raise 

"out  of  the  Blacklead  mine  at  Tantiusques 
the  quantity  of  twenty  tunnes  yearly  of 
good  marchantable  black  lead,  or  thirty 
tunnes  yearly  if  the  said  quantities  can 
there  be  raised  by  such  labor  and  endeavor 
by  fire  &  other  meanes  as  are  usual  and 
necessary  in  such  workes." 

The  lead  they  were  to  transport  to 
some  convenient  point  on  the  Con- 
necticut River  between  Windsor  Falls 
and  Hockanum,  atid  for  each  ton  so 
delivered  they  were  to  receive 

"the  full  sume  of  Ten  pounds  in  English 
goods  or  wheat  &  peas  as  they  shall  de- 
sire." 

But  mining  at  Tantiusques  was  a 
crude  process,  and  returns  upon  the 


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345 


investment  were  slow  in  making  their 
appearance.  Five  months  after  active 
operations  were  beg^n,  Winthrop 
wrote  to  his  son,  then  in  London : 

"There  is  some  black  lead  digged,  but  not 
so  much  as  they  expected,  it  being  very 
difficult  to  gett  out  of  yc  rocks,  wcl»  they 
are  forced  to  breake  with  fires,  their  rocks 
being  very  hard,  and  not  to  be  entered 
further  than  y«  fire  maketh  way,  so  as 
y<  charge  hath  beene  so  greate  in  digging 
of  it  that  I  am  like  to  have  no  profit  by  y« 
same." 


Months  later  the  same  difficulties 
are  still  being  experienced,  when  one 
of  the  partners  writes: 

**the  diging  of  the  surfe  (surface?)  haue 
bin  verie  chargable  to  vs,  for  want  of  a 
horce  or  catel  to  carie  there  wood,  for  thay 
can  doe  nothing  but  by  firing,  and  the 
caring  wood  vpon  there  backs  tack  vp  the 
gretest  part  of  there  time:  therefore  these 
are  to  desire  you  to  help  him  to  the  horce 
...  or  a  paire  of  oxen;  but  I  think  a 
horce  wil  be  best." 

How  long  work  was  continued  un- 
der this  management  and  how  great 
an  output  was  secured,  tfiere  is  now 
no  means  of  knowing.  It  is  of  inter- 
est that  the  last  extant  reference  to 
Tantiusques  made  by  its  first  proprie- 
tor occurs  in  a  letter  from  him  to  the 
secretary  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
London,  which  had  recently  been 
founded.  Winthrop  writes  in  terms 
of  the  highest  appreciation  of  his 
privilege  of  membership  in  this  socie- 
ty; he  gives  a  quite  extended  account 
of  various  mineral  resources  of  North 
America  and  of  his  experiments  in 
making  salt.  After  referring  to  some 
of  his  heavy  losses  resulting  from  the 
capture  of  vessels  by  the  Dutch,  he 
adds,  in  evident  allusion  to  Tanti- 
usques: 


"But  who  knowes  the  Issues  of  Divine 
Providence!  Possibly  I  might  have  buried 
more  in  an  uncertain  mine  (vf^^  I  fancied 
more  than  salt)  had  not  such  accidents 
prevented." 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  his  own 
grandson  andi  many  a  later  mining 
speculator  could  not  have  profited  by 
this  chastened  experience. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Win- 
throp bought  the  tract  of  land  at  Tan- 
tiusques under  warrant  of  the  General 
Court,  and  that  the  deeds  had  de- 
scribed the  land  purchased  as  "lying 
.  .  .  round  the  said  Black  lead  Hill 
for  ten  miles  each  way."  However  a 
geometrician  might  interpret  this  de- 
scription, the  Winthrop  heirs  always 
contended  that  it  denoted  a  tract  "ten 
miles  square,  including  the  black  lead 
hill."  In  the  middle  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  so  extensive  a  purchase 
probably  attracted  no  attention,  but 
seventy-five  years  later  the  General 
Court    was    making    grants    which 


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"THE  TALE  OF  TANTIUSQUES" 


Hauling  up  Graphite  from  the  Dee?  Cut 

threatened  to  trench  upon  the  Win- 
throp  domain.  Accordingly  in  1714, 
rehearsing  the  improvements  which 
his  father  had  made, — improvements 
now  "discontinued  by  reason  of  the 
long  war  and  trouble  with  the  In- 
dians,"— Wait  Winthrop  petitioned 
the  Court  to  authorize  a  survey  of 
this  tract  "to  be  to  your  petitioner  and 
his  heirs,  and  the  place  may  be  of  rec- 
ord, that  any  new  grant  may  not  be 
laid  upon  the  same  land."  Some 
months  later  he  intimates  that  al- 
though his  father's  right  to  ten  miles 
square  was  indisputable,  he  himself 
would  be  satisfied  with  six  miles 
square.  Yet  the  Court  proved  willing 
to  concede  him  only  four  miles  square. 
Although  this  was  short  of  his  pro- 
posal and  "but  a  small  thing  with  re- 
spect to  the  contents  of  the  purchase, 
which  was  ten  miles  every  way  from 
the  mine,"  yet  Wait  Winthrop  de- 
clared himself  not  unwilling  to  accept 
this  as  a  settlement  of  the  controversy, 
provided  the  boundaries  could  be  laid 
out  to  his  satisfaction.  Under  an  or- 
der of  the  Court  the  survey  was  made 
on  the  eleventh  of  October,  1715,  by  a 
Capt.  Jno.  Chandler,  accompanied  by 
Mr.  Winthrop's  son,  who  was  directed 
by  his  father  to  make  careful  inquiry, 
so  as  to  locate  within  the  tract  the 


most  valuable  land  of  tlie  region. 
Winthrop  thus  describes  their  method 
of  procedure :  They  had  hoped  to  take 
as  one  boundary  either  the  Colony  line 
or  else  the  Quinebaug  River,  "but 
upon  tlieir  view  they  found  nothing 
between  the  mine  and  the  river  as 
also  between  the  mine  &  the  Collony 
line  nothing  but  mountains  &  rox  not 
improuable  and  scarce  worth  any- 
thing; whereupon  they  layd  it  out  in 
a  sort  of  triangular  square,  that  they 
might  take  in  som  good  land  with  a 
great  deale  of  bad,  and  thought  it 
might  answare  the  intention,  it  being 
all  within  the  said  purchase  and 
granted  to  nobody  else,  .  .  .  but  the 
House  of  Representatives  were  pleased 
not  to  be  satisfied  with  it  inasmuch  as 
it  was  not  laid  in  a  square."  Win- 
throp was  doubtless  right  in  inferring 
that  it  was  the  influence  of  the  Spring- 
field representatives  that  blocked  his 
scheme,  for  they  held  that  the  tract, 
thus  plotted,  would  overlap  the  three 
mile  strip  which  they  were  urging  the 
Court  to  add  to  the  new  plantation  of 
Brimfield.  Much  discouraged  at  the 
rejection  of  this  survey,  Winthrop 
urges  upon  his  son  the  speedy  making 
of  a  new  one  "that  may  be  square  and 
take  in  as  much  of  the  best  land  as  it 
will" ;  he  thinks  "two  or  three  days  at 
Tantiusques  will  finish  a  new  plat,  now 
you  know  where  the  best  land  is." 
Yet  a  dozen  years  passed  before  the 
bounds  of  the  Winthrop  grant  were 
adjusted.  The  final  map,  signed  by 
Captain  Chandler  and  two  others, 
bears  this  endorsement : 

"Pursuant  to  an  order  of  the  Generall  As- 
sembly of  the  7^  day  of  June,  1728  We 
have  reformed  the  Survey  of  10240  Acres 
of  Land  at  Tantiusques  or  th  Black  led 
mines    being    the    Contents    of    four    mile 


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Receipt  for  First  Consignment  of  Graphite  from  the  Tantiusques  mine 


Square,  belonging  to  the  Heirs  of  the  Late 
Hon^^c  Major  Gen^l  Winthrop  Dec<l  And 
have  laid  it  out  in  a  Square  figure  .  .  . 
as  We  Judge  is  a  full  Equivalent  for  his 
former   Survey." 

The  new  survey  took  the  Colony 
line  as  its  southern  boundary;  Brim- 
field  New  Grant  overlapped  the  Win- 
throp territory  6h  the  west  by  a  strip 
a  mile  and  a  half  wide. 

Over  the  settlement  of  Wait  Win- 
throp's  will  there  arose  a  prolonged 
controversy,  and  in  1726  his  only  son, 
John,  went  to  London  to  seek  from 
the  Privy  Council  redress  for  the  in- 
justice which  he  considered  had  been 
done  him  by  the  Connecticut  courts. 
And  there  he  continued  to  live  for 
twenty-one  years,  until  his  death, 
while  in  New  London  his  good  wife 
was  making  strenuous  eflForts  to  care 
for  his  young  family  and  straighten 
out  his  tangled  business  affairs.  This 
John  Winthrop  had  been  graduated 
from  Harvard  College  in  1700,  and 
had  early  developed  tastes  for  literary 
and  scientific  studies.  In  London 
there  were  abundant  opportunities  for 
the    cultivation    of    such    tastes;    he 


formed  an  interesting  circle  of  friends, 
and  in  1734  was  elected  a  Fellow  of 
the  Royal  Society,  from  which  it  hap- 
pens that  he  is  habitually  styled  John 
Winthrop,  "F.  R.  S."  So  Valued  a 
member  did  he  become  that  in  1741 
the  fortieth  volume  of  its  Transactions 
was  dedicated  to  him  in  a  long  and 
highly  appreciative  tribute. 

Winthrop  entertained  the  most  ex- 
aggerated notions  of  the  mineral 
wealth  to  be  found  upon  his  estates, 
and  his  grandfather's  lack  of  success 
could  not  dissuade  him  from  entering 
upon  ambitious  schemes  for  the  devel- 
opment of  his  proi)erties.  His  opti- 
mism as  a  mining  s])eculator  was  in- 
vincible. He  was  probably  the  first  of 
the  Winthroi)s  who  had  actually  vis- 
ited Tantiusques,  for  it  was  he  who. 
at  the  age  of  34,  had  accompanied 
Capt.  Jno.  Chandler,  when  he  "layd  it 
out  in  a  sort  of  triangular  square." 
A  second  map  of  this  same  survey  is 
preserved,  a  map  wholly  in  the  writ- 
ing of  John  Winthrop,  F.  R.  S.  It  is 
signed   "J-    C.   Jun*"   Surveyor,''    and 

dated   "Octob^  ye   nth  ,"  the 

year    being    carefully    erased.      The 


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348 


"THE  TALE  OF  TANTIUSQUES" 


Looking  Out  from  the  Tunnel 

boundary  points  have  obviously  been 
pricked  through  this  paper,  and  the 
dimensions  are  identical  with  those  of 
Chandler's  map.  Yet  it  differs  in 
some  interesting  particulars.  The 
Woodstock  surveyor  took  pains  to 
designate  the  character  of  the  soil  in 
various  parts  of  the  tract ;  Winthrop's 
map  not  only  reproduces  most  of  these 
data,  but  it  is  further  embellished  with 
such  entries  as  the  following : 

"Rare  fishing  in  this  Pond." 

"Rich  Lead  Oar." 

"A  place  of  good  copper  Oar." 

"Iron  Mines." 

"Here  is  a  Heavy  Black  Stone  v/^^  is  Rich 
in  Tinn  and  D°»." 

"On  this  side  of  the  Hill  is  small  Veins 
of  pure  Silver." 

"Granates  Mountain  and  a  fine  sort  of 
Greaish  Stone  wc^  contain  O.*' 

D"*  (Diana)  or  the  crescent,  and 
the  circle  were  the  alchemistic  symbols 
respectively  for  silver  and  gold! 

And  all  this  varied  store  of  mineral 
wealth  in  a  tract  of  a  few  thousand 
acres  within  seventy-five  miles  of 
Boston!  It  would  be  interesting  to 
know  beneath  whose  eyes  it  was  Win- 
throp's  intention  that  this  map  should 
pass.    It  is  not  without  significance 


that  every  one  of  these  remarkable 
entries — not  one  of  which  appears 
upon  Chandler's  map — is  written  in 
an  ink  entirely  different  from  that  of 
the  map  and  of  its  other  notes. 

In  entering  upon  his  project  Win- 
throp's  first  move  was  to  secure  infor- 
mation as  to  the  market  for  graphite 
upon  the  Continent.  For  this  purpose 
he  employed  a  crochety  ex-sea  captain, 
named  John  Morke,  who  represented 
himself  to  be  a  Swedish  engineer. 
His  fin  :  report,  from  Rotterdam,  was : 

"Whai  Incoregesment  I  meet  with  hear 
is  about  as  good  as  all  the  rest  and  verry 
Endefrant  is  the  best  either  to  despose  of 
a  quantity  and  small  prise." 

Three  weeks  later,  however,  he 
writes  from  Rouen : 

"What  I  have  Engaged  for  allready  with 
what  is  lakely  to  Increase  I  believe  will 
amount  to  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
Tun  of  black  Lead  yearly  to  Sopply  France 
and  Holland,  and  at  a  good  price,  above 
£  100  p'.  Tun ;  and  I  find  very  Considerable 
Encouragement  for  your  other  Mines  as 
Tin  &c." 

Later  developments  utterly  discredit 
Morke's  report  of  what  he  had  accom- 
plished; yet  it  was  upon  such  misin- 


THE  MOUTH  OF  THE  TUNNEL 


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"THE  TALE  OF  TANTIUSQUES'^ 


349 


formation    as    this    that    Winthrop's 
schemes  were  based. 

In  August,  1737,  Winthrop  en- 
gaged Morke  to  act  as  his  steward 
at  the  mine;  he  also  entered  into  a 
contract  with  a  young  London  mer- 
chant, named  Samuel  Sparrow,  as  his 
agent  for  the  transportation  and  sale 
of  the  black  lead.  The  very  next  day 
Sparrow  and  Morke  set  sail  for 
America.  Without  delay  they  went 
up  to  the  mine.  There  the  difficulties 
in  their  way  began  to  appear.  The 
old  workings  were  covered  with  rub- 
bish and  water,  in  some  places  four- 
teen feet  deep.  The  mineral,  though 
of  good  quality,  lay  deep  in  small 
veins  in  very  hard  rock.  Transporta- 
tion charges  were  enormous;  it  cost 
them  £13.  los.  to  get  their  two  cart- 
loads of  stuff  taken  to  Woodstock, 
and  there,  ten  miles  from  their  goal, 
they  had  to  store  them  for  the  winter, 
as  no  cartway  could  be  found  over 
Breakneck  Hill.  The  Winthrop  fam- 
ily gave  them  a  chilly  reception,  and 
showed  little  inclination  to  advance 
money  or  to  cooperate  with  them  in  a 
venture  which  never  commended  itself 
to  Madam  Winthrop's  sound  business 
sense.  The  goods  which  Sparrow  had 
brought  found  but  a  slow  market. 

Life  at  the  mine  was  far  from  lux- 
urious. Morke  presently  wrote  to  a 
London  friend,  asking  her  to 
"halp  mc  to  a  Small  repair  of  a  fue  nec- 
ccaris  as  I  havin  ben  so  constanly  tear- 
ing and  baking  my  Smal  Stok  out,  as 
Shoos,  buts,  and  my  rof  traveling  things 
to  rcpare  the  which  a  Smal  peed  of  Cours 
or  Strong  Check  lining — Some  whit,  for 
myself  and  my  folk,  cithc  of  Som  Cheep 
Irish  lining  or  others— a  pr.  or  2  of  good 
second  hand  blank  1 3,  a  Sett  of  Copping 
Glasses  and  the  tuls — and  a  good  Secon 
hand  Bible,  large  print  with  y«  pokrefy 
(Apocryphal)  in  it.** 


Following  the  Vein— the  Latest  Workings 

He  sends  also  for  some  dress  goods 
for  his  wife, 

"if  there  should  be  more  Corn  in  Egept  to 
spare,"  and  adds:  "if  you  tak  the  trubl  to 
lett  Honnist  Thomas  bespeek  my  Shoos,  of 
Mr.  Dicks  by  turn  Still  I  know  he'll  mak 
them  strong  My  Sise  is  one  Sise  beger 
then  Mr  Sparows  and  somthing  wider 
over  the  tooes  by  resen  of  Corns  if  a  pare 
oj;L<4two  to  be  for  my  wif  and  daufter  say 
\yi^sise  is  ner  your  and  my  daufters  a  sis 
beger  but  requers*  to  be  strong  for  boston 
streets  is  verry  Ruff." 

He  ends  his  postscript  with  the  fur- 
ther request : 

"be  so  good  to  send  me  also  a  lettel  strong 
strip  Cuton  and  lining  to  mak  me  west  Cots 
trousers  of  to  work  in  the  heat  or  mins 
withall  for  them  and  my  Stokings  and 
Cours  things  is  all  most  gon  to  pot-" 

The  mine  was  located  in  a  wilder- 
ness about  which  settlements  were 
only  just  beginning;  the  settlers  had 
their  grievances  against  Winthrop, 
and  were  not  over  friendly  in  their 
dealings  with  his  workmen.  But  oc- 
casions of  discord  were  not  wanting 


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"THE  TALE  OF  TANTIUSQUES" 


Frederick  Tudor 

nearer  home:  the  respective  responsi- 
bilities of  Sparrow  and  Morke  were 
ill-defined,  and  this  gave  rise  to  not  a 
little  friction  between  them.  Even 
after  Sparrow  had  returned  to  Eng- 
land with  the  first  consignment  of 
graphite,  Morke  was  still  keeping 
things  in  a  turmoil.  Winthrop's 
eighteen-year-old  son  went  up  to  the 
mine  on  a  visit,  and  promptly  sent 
word  to  his  mother: 

"At  my  arrival  Contrary  to  my  expec- 
tation I  meet  with  verry  Cold  Treatment 
from  Cap*  Morke,  and  after  many  hot 
words  passing  between  us  he  Told  me 
that  I  had  no  buisness  their  to  act  any 
Thing  but  immediately  under  him. — the 
Same  Day  I  Came  he  went  to  Brimfield 
in  a  great  Passion,  where  he  had  got  a 
Club  of  Irishmen  who  are  his  advisers  and 
went  to  yc  Justice  of  yc  Peace  and  shoed 
his  Power  from  my  father  and  Indeavr<i 
to  get  false  witnesses  to  bring  an  action 
against  M»"  Wright  for  Defaming  of  him." 

The  stores  were  running  low: 
"as  for  y^  Rum  their  is  about  three  gallons 
Left  and  no  more  and  two  of  molases  and 
halfe  a  barril  of  Porke." 

Young  Winthrop  thought  it  would 


be  best  to  remove  what  lead  had  been 
dug — about  800  weight — ^to  the  house 
of  a'  neighbor,  where  one  of  the  work- 
men might  live  until  further  orders, 
going  to  the  mine  "Three  times  in  a 
weeke  to  See  how  he  (Morke)  Carries 
on."    He  adds : 

**and  as  for  my  part  I  would  not  live  in  y« 
manner  I  do  might  I  have  a  million  of 
money,  for  Their  is  not  an  our  in  y«  Day 
but  their  is  hot  words." 

But  it  soon  became  evident  that  "a 
million  of  money"  was  not  likely  to  be 
forthcoming.  Sparrow  had  already 
returned  to  England,  taking  with  him 
about  a  ton  and  three-quarters  of 
black  lead.  This,  he  sent  word  to 
America,  proved  to  be  not  up  to  the 
quality  of  the  English  black  lead,  and 
the  highest  price  he  could  secure  was 
4d,  a  pound.  Yet  Winthrop  seems  to 
have  been  carried  away  by  the  actual 
arrival  of  graphite  from  his  mine;  he 
is  also  apparently  suspicious  of  Spar- 
row. Only  a  fortnight  after  making 
this  discouraging  report,  Winthrop 
wrote  to  Morke : 

"The  Black  Lead  you  have  Dugg  and 
Sent  over  proves  Extraordinary,  and  is 
certainly  the  Best  that  is  known  in  the 
World,  it  is  admired  by  all  Disinterested 
and  Undesigneing  persons,  tho  there  is 
some  people  that  have  private  Views 
wou'd  seem  to  slight  and  Undervalue  it. 
But  I  doe  assure  you  it  containes  a  Fifth 
part  Silver,  but  this  you  must  keep  as  a 
secret  and  not  talke  to  any  body  about  it 
further  then  it  is  to  make  pencills  tg 
marke  downe  the  Sins  of  the  People.*' 

He  then  urges  his  steward  to  build 
a  large  storehouse ;  to  fence  in  about  a 
mile  square  at  the  mine ;  to  turn  aside 
the  bridle-path,  that  their  work  may 
be  more  private.  He  assures  him  that 
he  shall  have  a  stock  of  milch  cows 
and  breeding  swine,  and  reminds  him : 
"whatever  you  meet  with  that  is  Uncoin- 


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moa  or  that  lockM  like  a  Rarety  or  Curi- 
osity, Remember  that  you  are  to  preserve 
it  for  me."  He  bids  Morke  disregard  "all 
Uttle  Tattle  wch  is  always  Hatchet  in 
Hell»  with  Designes  to  disturbe  &  prevent 
all  good  Undertakeings." 

This  extraordinary  letter  closes  with 
the  statement: 

"Mr.  Agate  was  with  me  this  Morning 
and  is  pleased  to  See  a  peice  of  the  Black 
Lead  you  sent  over,  and  says  he  sells  that 
w<^  dos  not  look  so  well  for  Sixteen 
shillings  a  pound." 

Within  less  than  a  week  of  the  writ- 
ing of  this  letter  a  Hamburg  commis- 
sion merchant,  in  response  to  Win- 
throp's  inquiries,  made  timely  report 
that  in  Germany  the  maximum  price 
for  black  lead  was  sixteen  shillings, 
not  for  one  pound,  but  for  one  hun- 
dred pounds ;  a  month  later  he  writes : 

"The  black  Lead  is  too  Dear  to  Send 
much  of  it  here,  you  may  Send  about  loo^b 
of  it  for  a  tryall  in  a  Smale  Caske  &  I'll 
Endeavor  to  Serve  you  therein." 

Meanwhile,  Sparrow  had  not  yet 
given  up  hope  that  Tantiusques 
would  eventually  yield  profit  to  him 
who  would  make  the  necessary  effort 
to  obtain  it.  Accordingly  he  came  to 
America  once  more  in  the  sununer 
of  1740,  resolved  to  make  a  final 
trial.  With  a  redoubled  zeal  and  the 
crude  appliances  at  his  command,  he 
set  to  work.  Less  than  a  ton  of  black 
lead  was  the  result  of  his  exertion  for 
the  next  ten  months. 

Thoroughly  disheartened  and  dis- 
gusted, he  became  convinced  that  it 
would  be  folly  to  continue  working 
the  mine  longer.  It  was  while  Spar- 
row was  pursuing  this  forlorn  hope 
that  Winthrop  read  the  following 
statement  before  the  Royal  Society : 


"One  hundred 
Ounces  of  Ore  out 
of  the  Mine  of 
Potosi  in  Peru  (w<^ 
is  six  pounds  and 
one  quarter)  yields 
one  Ounce  and  a 
half  of  Silver  w<^ 
is  less  than  five 
penny  Weight  out 
of  a  pound  of  the 
Ore." 


"Mr.  Winthrop's 
black  Ore  at  Tan- 
tiusques, out  of  one 
hundred  Ounces  of 
Ore  (w<*  is  as 
above  six  pounds 
and  one  quarter) 
yields  Three 
Ounces  and  fifteen 
penny  Weight  of 
silver,  wch  is 
Twelve  penny 
Weight  out  of  a 
pound  of  the  Ore." 


This  is  in  Winthrop's  own  hand- 
writing, and  bears  his  endorsement: 
"1741,  Jan.  7,  read  at  y*  Royal  So- 
ciety." Whatever  faith  he  placed  in 
his  own  statement  must  have  been 
rudely  dispelled  a  few  months  later  by 
the  report  of  a  London  assayer : 

"I  have  tried  your  Samples  of  Ores,  but 
none  of  them  are  of  any  Value  except 
the  Black  Lead-  That  which  you  call  a 
Silver  Ore  is  almost  all  Iron,  nor  can  any 
other  metal  be  got  from  it  that  will  pay 
the  charge  of  refining;  and  this  you  may 
be  Satisfied  in,  l^  Calcining  a  piece  of 
that  Ore,  then  Pound  it,  and  the  Load- 
stone will  take  it  all  up;  which  is  full 
conviction* 

"That  which  you  called  a  Tin  Ore  holds 
no  proportion  of  Metal  that  is  sufficient 
to  defray  the  expense  of  refining. 

"The  Black  Lead  Silver  Ore  holds  about 
one  Ninetenth  part,  but  it  is  very  hard  to 
seperate;  and  I  reckon  that  the  value  of 
the  Black  Lead  lost  in  the  operation  is 
more  than  the  value  of  the  Silver."  (As 
a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  scientific  develop- 
ment of  the  property  in  1901  pyrites,  bear- 
ing silver  in  very  inappreciable  quantities 
have  come  to  light,  but  nothing  of  the 
nature  of  a  "Black  Lead  Silver  Ore"  has 
been  found.) 

More  than  half  of  the  papers  relat- 
ing to  Tantiusques  consist  of  letters 
and  1^^  documents  bearing  upon 
controversies    arising    out    of    Win- 


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Copy  of  First  Survey  of  Land  Granted  to  John  Winthrop,  Jr.,  by  the  Massachusetts  Colony 


throp's  contracts  with  Morke  and 
Sparrow.  Morke  had  returned  to  Lon- 
don in  1741 ;  and  he  straightway  be- 
gan urging  a  settlement  of  his  claims. 
His  style  is  not  lacking  in  vigor  and 
picturesqueness ;  indeed,  he  himself 
saw  need  of  apologizing  for  his  "rash 
expretions/'  for  in  one  letter  he  had 
ventured  to  say: 

"If  I  had  not  a  New  England  Colledge 
Education,  I  have  an  Honist,  Christian, 
Usefull  one.  .  .  if  I  was  not  the  fagg  End 
of  y«  old  Honourable  John  Winthrop, 
Esq^  I  ame  of  the  Honourable  &  most 
faimus  Lord  Tyge  Brath  (Tycho  Brahel): 
and  all  this  adds  nothing,  not  eaven  one 
Singall  Ench  to  my  hoyght." 


His  mood  is  in  constant  change; 
now  he  pleads  for  an  amicable  settle- 
ment for  the  sake  of  his  destitute  wife 
and  child ;  now  he  protests  his  loyalty 
to  Mr.  Winthrop  and  his  ability  to  do 
him  the  utmost  service;  but  now,  on 
the  other  hand,  his  words  take  the 
tone  of  the  most  arrant  blackmailer; 
he  threatens  to  expose  Winthrop's  se- 
crets to  his  creditors,  taunts  him  with 
living  in  the  best-guarded  house  in 
London,  and  with  not  daring  to  be 
seen  in  the  street,  and  threatens  io 
have  him  hauled  out  of  his  own  bed 
by  the  constable,  unless  he  settles  bis 
account.  So  the  letters  nm  for  nearly 
four  years,  until  the  controversy  was 

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Copy  of  a  Re-snrvey  <^  land  Granted  to  John  Winthrop,  Jr.,  by  the  Massachusetts  Colony. 


finally  brought  up  in  court,  and,  as 
Winthrop  expressed  it  in  writing  to 
his  son,  ''Morke  was  cast/' 

Meantime,  Sparrow,  too,  at  first 
very  courteously,  but  later  with  gjreat 
persistence,  had  been  demanding  a 
settlement,  and  presently  suit  was 
brought  against  Winthrop  in  New 
London.  Sparrow  claimed  that  he 
was  entitled  to  "one  eighth  of  the  neat 
produce  of  the  sale  of   500  tons  of 


black  lead,"  since  by  the  terms  of  his 
contract  he  was  boimd  only  to  trans- 
port and  sell  the  black  lead,  which 
Winthrop  by  his  contract  was  to  dc- 
liver  to  him  within  the  period  of  six 
years.  Winthrop's  contention,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  that  he  was  under  no 
obligation  to  deliver  the  lead  except 
as  it  lay  in  the  mountain,  and  that  by 
verbal  agreement  it  was  expressly 
stipulated  that  Sparrow  was  to  do  the 


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'THE  TALE  OF  TANTIUSQUES*' 


digging.  A  witness  to  the  original 
contract  affirmed  Winthrop's  state- 
ment most  positively,  but  Sparrow  de- 
nied the  recollection  of  any  such 
pledges.  The  issue  between  the  two 
it  is  now  impossible  to  determine. 
The  contract  was  certainly  loosely 
drawn,  and  in  place  of  the  500  tons 
anticipated,  not  more  than  five  tons  at 
the  most  had  been  actually  transported 
and  sold.  Whether  Sparrow  was  a 
party  to  artifice  in  securing  for  him- 
self from  the  very  beginning  this  loop- 
hole, or  not,  in  the  end  disappointment 
in  the  enterprise  induced  him  to  avail 
himself  of  this  technicality  in  the  hope 
of  making  good  some  of  his  losses. 
He  claimed  with  entire  truth,  how- 
ever, that  he  had  been  led  into  the 
enterprise  upon  Winthrop's  repeated 
assurances  that  the  mineral  at  Tan- 
tiusques  contained  one-fifth  part  sil- 
ver. That  Winthrop  made  this  asser- 
tion his  own  writing  proves.  Sparrow 
went  further,  and  in  a  letter  to  Win- 
throp's wife  declared: 


"He  (Winthrop)  shcw'd  to  me  an  ex- 
perement  with  another  Mineral  (of  which 
he  has  1000  Tons  upon  his  Estate)  from 
which  he  extracted  a  good  deel  of  silver, 
and  I  may  venture  to  say  he  is  still  the 
richest  Man  in  all  the  Collonies  if  that 
experement  was  not  made  to  deceive  but 
true  and  fair." 


Morke  is  apparently  hinting  at  the 
same  transaction  when  he  writes  to 
Winthrop : 

"I  can  sew  you  some  of  the  lead  you 
or  Mistris  hyde  geve  me  the  mony  to 
purchis  in  Shoolan  a  peace  of  which  I 
Saw'd  in  Sunder  one  of  which  was  for  a 
patren  given  to  Mr.  Sparow  and  Comperd 
it  to  Myne  at  the  mins." 


It  is  to  be  remembered,  of  course, 
that  at  the  time  these  charges  were 
made  both  Morke  and  Sparrow  were 
in  controversy  with  Winthrop,  and 
hence  had  some  motive  for  trumping 
up  charges  against  him.  Yet  the  ac- 
cusation is  not  made  to  influence  the 
opinion  of  others,  but  is  foimd  in  pri- 
vate letters  to  Winthrop  and  to  his 
wife. 

This  prolonged  litigation  had  an 
injurious  eflfect  upon  Mr.  Winthrop's 
health ;  he  died  in  London  in  August, 
1747.  Sparrow's  suit  was  soon  re- 
newed against  the  widow;  it  seems 
finally  to  have  been  compromised. 
For  many  years  "y«  hill  at  Tantousq, 
in  which  the  black  leade  is,"  still  re- 
mained in  the  possession  of  the  Win- 
throp family,  but  there  is  no  record  of 
their  having  made  further  attempts  to 
develop  the  mine  which  had  produced 
little  else  than  disappointment  of  the 
fondest  hopes. 

Material  for  the  later  story  of  the 
mine  is  both  scattered  and  scanty.  In 
the  years  1828  and  1829,  Frederick 
Tudor  of  Boston,  who  later  amassed  a 
large  fortune  in  the  ice  business,  ac- 
quired over  127  acres  of  land,  includ- 
ing the  Lead  Mine.  In  1889  a  Stur- 
bridge  man  living  in  the  vicinity  of 
the  mine,  bought  this  property  of  Mr. 
Tudor's  heirs  for  the  sake  of  its  wood 
and  timber.  In  April,  1902,  the  mine 
and  seventy-seven  acres  of  land, — the 
diminished  remnant  of  Winthrop's 
lordly  domain  of  "ten  miles  round 
the  hills  where  the  mine  is  thats  called 
black  lead,"— came  into  the  possession 
of  the  Massachusetts  Graphite  Com- 
pany, the  corporation  to-day  engaged 
in  developing  the  ancient  mine,  which 
for  many  years  had  been  practically 
abandoned. 


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Mr.  Tudor  was  probably  the  first 
proprietor  to  whom  this  mine  did  not 
bring  financial  loss.  In  the  first  year 
of  his  ownership,  1828-9,  he  made 
vigorous  efforts  to  open  a  market  for 
the  product.  Sample  consignments  of 
Tantiusques  graphite  were  sent  to 
Havana,  Liverpool,  London,  Ham- 
burg, Marseilles  and  Amsterdam.  For 
several  months  a  Capt.  Joseph  Dixon 
acted  as  Tudor's  superintendent  at  the 
mine.  At  the  end  of  that  time  Tudor, 
for  reasons  best  known  to  himself, 
discharged  Dixon  and  his  son  Francis. 
But  the  Dixons'  affinity  for  graph- 
ite proved  too  strong  to  be  overcome 
by  the  munificent  offer  of  an  annuity 
of  $156,  made  by  Mr.  Tudor  on  the 
condition  that  crucible  works  should 
not  be  established  by  them  elsewhere ; 
for  the  Captain's  son,  Joseph  Dixon, 
who  later  attained  great  distinction 
as  an  inventor,  organized  the  Dixon 
Crucible  Company,  which  speedily  be- 
came a  large  and  thriving  concern, 
and  remains  so  to  this  day,  while  the 
quah'ties  of  the  Dixon  pencil  are 
known  to  every  reader  of  this  story. 

That  mining  under  the  Tudor  man- 
agement ceased  in  the  '50's  was  not 
due  to  the  mine's  having  become  ex- 
hausted, but  to  the  fact  that  the  low 
price  of  graphite  would  no  longer 
leave  a  good  maigin,  in  view  of  the 
gfrowing  difficulties  which  had  to  be 
encountered.  In  the  first  place  there 
was  the  remoteness  of  the  mine  and 
the  difficulty  in  transporting  the  heavy 
product.  Although  it  was  no  longer 
necessary  to  "tracke  the  way  before 
the  weades  be  grone  high,"  neverthe- 
less this  getting  of  the  graphite  to  the 
market  remained  a  heavy  charge.  It 
was  first  carted  in  barrels  to  Holland, 
where  it  was  ground  at  an  old  grist- 


mill ;  the  carts  were  then  reloaded  for 
a  trip  of  a  dozen  miles  and  more  over 
very  hilly  roads  to  Charlton  Depot, 
where  the  graphite  was  put  on  board 
the  cars  for  Boston.  Again,  the  min- 
eral occurred  in  thin  veins,  running 
through  a  very  hard  rock.  The  prin- 
cipal vein  was  inclined  at  an  angle  of 
something  like  seventy  degrees,  and 
the  primitive  method  of  mining  this 
by  means  of  a  deep  open  cut  was  both 
difficult  and  dangerous.  In  October, 
1830,  by  the  fall  of  a  mass  of  over- 
hanging rock,  two  workmen  were 
crushed  to  death  and  a  third  was  crip- 
pled for  life.  But  the  difficulty  upon 
which  Tudor  laid  greatest  stress  was 
that  experienced  in  draining  the  mine. 
Repeatedly  work  had  to  be  suspended 
because  of  the  water.  Some  of  it  was 
gotten  rid  of  by  means  of  a  syphon; 
later '  a  windmill  was  erected,  and 
proved  somewhat  more  effective.  Dur- 
ing the  past  summer  there  has  been 
unearthed  at  the  mine  an  old  wooden 
pump  which  formed  a  part  of  this  out- 
fit. But  these  crude  and  unstable  ap- 
pliances could  not  overcome  such 
obstacles.  Mr.  Tudor  was  not  ready 
to  incur  the  expense  necessary  to  drain 
the  mine  into  the  pond, — if,  indeed, 
that  were  feasible, — or  to  equip  it  with 
power  pumps  and  drills.  Hence  it 
was  abandoned,  and  slept  undisturbed 
for  two  score  years,  awaiting  the  age 
of  steam. 

That  age  has  now  come.  New 
buildings  have  been  erected,  modem 
machinery  installed,  and  a  dozen  men 
are  in  constant  employ.  In  a  single 
week  more  graphite  has  been  obtained 
than  rewarded  all  the  troubled  labors 
of  Morke  and  Sparrow.  Before  such 
vigorous  attacks  nature's  resistance  is 
giving  way.    A  few  months  will  bring 


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356  A  GARDEN  NEAR  BAGDAD 

to  light  the  secrets  which  for  two  cen-     ly  guarded  by  the  black  lead  hill  at 
turies  and  a  half  have  been  so  jealous-     Tantiusques. 


A  Garden  Near  Bagdad 

By  Charles  Hanson  Towne 

UPON  an  archway  of  this  garden-place, 
Beloved,  as  we  roamed  at  twilight-time, 
I  saw  these  words  in  Oriental  rhyme, 
Graven  in  letters  years  could  not  efface: 

"Behold !  there  is  no  garden  like  her  eyes, 
Wherein  the  deepest  violets  find  rest. 
Where  secrets  that  the  woods  have  never  guessed 
Hide  when  the  dawn  and  dusk  breathe  their  soft  sighs. 

"There  is  no  garden  like  her  matchless  lips — 

Two  crimson  blooms  that  tremble  as  love's  breath 
Steals  closer  when  the  long  day  slumbereth, 
And  quaffs  their  nectar  as  the  young  bee  sips. 

"A  moonlit  garden  is  her  pallid  throat, 

Where  dim,  deep  shadows  of  her  dusky  hair 
Sway  like  the  branches  of  the  tall  palms ;  where 
White  water  lilies  'neath  a  fountain  float. 

"Her  hair  is  that  vast  garden  of  the  night. 

More  wondrous  when  the  wan,  pale  moon  is  gone — 
That  garden  where  the  heart  forgets  the  dawn, 
Glad  to  have  lost  the  glamour  of  the  light. 

"And,  oh,  her  breast !    It  is  a  place  to  dream 
Of  languorous  hours  filled  full  with  poppy-scent; 
Of  days  when  paradise  and  earth  seem  blent, 
And  love  glides  down  its  old,  forgotten  stream. 

"Yea,  she  whom  thou  adorest  forms  a  place 
More  beauteous  than  Edens  such  as  this: 
Yet  hither  come,  to  learn  of  greater  bliss. — 
Then  go,  and  seek  the  garden  of  her  face  I" 


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The  Operator's  Story"" 


De  Molay  Four 

By  Frank  H.  Spearman 


VERY  able  men  have  given 
their  lives  to  the  study  of 
Monsoon's  headlight ;  yet 
science,  after  no  end  of  in- 
vestigation, stands  in  its  presences  baf- 
fled. 

The  source  of  its  illumination  is 
believed  to  be  understood.  I  say  be- 
lieved, because  in  a  day  when  yester- 
day's beliefs  are  to-morrow's  delusions 
I  commit  myself  personally  to  no 
theory.  Whether  it  is  a  thing  living 
or  dead ;  whether  malign  to  mackerel 
or  potent  in  its  influence  on  imper- 
fectly understood  atmospheric  phe- 
nomena, I  do  not  know.  I  doubt 
whether  anybody  knows,  except  may 
be  Monsoon  himself.  I  know  only 
that  on  the  West  End,  Monsoon's 
headlight,  from  every  point  of  view, 
stands  high,  and  that  on  one  occasion 
it  stood  between  Abe  Monsoon  and  a 
frightful  catastrophe. 

There  have  been  of  late  studied  ef- 
forts to  introduce  electric  headlights 
on  the  Mountain  Division.  But  there 
are  grizzled  men  in  the  cab  who  look 
with  distrust — silent,  it  is  true,  yet  dis- 
trust— on  the  claims  put  forth  for 
them.  While  Monsoon's  headlight 
does  its  work — as  it  has  done  even 
long  before  Monsoon  followed  it  to  the 
West  End,  and  will  do  long  after  he 


*(CopyTlgfat,  1902,  by  Frank  H.  Spearman.) 


leaves  the  West  End — why,  they  say, 
and  reasonably  enough,  take  on  new 
and  theoretical  substitutes? 

While  the  discussion  deepens  and 
even  rages  in  the  Wickiup,  Monsoon 
himself  is  silent.  Brave  men  are 
modest  men.  Among  ourselves  we 
don't  use  adjectives;  where  Monsoon 
is  known  it  is  not  necessary  to  put  any- 
thing ahead  of  his  name — except, 
may  be,  once  a  month  on  the  pay-roll 
when  the  cross-eyed  accountant  adds 
A.  or  Abe  or  Abraham,  just  as  he  hap- 
pens to  be  fixed  for  time.  Monsoon's 
name  in  itself  stands  for  a  great  deal. 
When  his  brother  engineers,  men  who 
have  grown  seamy  and  weatherbeaten 
in  the  service,  put  up  their  voices  for 
Monsoon's  headlight;  or  when  talka- 
tive storekeepers,  who  servilely  jump 
at  headquarters'  experiments  in  order 
to  court  the  favor  of  the  high,  speak 
for  electricity,  Abe  Monsoon  himself 
is  silent.  His  light  is  there;  let  them 
take  it  or  leave  it  as  they  will.  If 
the  superintendent  of  motive  power 
should  attempt  to  throw  it  out  for  the 
new-fangled  arrangement,  Monsoon 
would  doubtless  feel  that  it  was  not 
the  first  time  Omaha  had  gone  wrong 
— and,  for  that  matter,  that  neither  he 
nor  anybody  else  had  assurance  it 
would  be  the  last    However — 

The  story  opens  on  Bob  DuflFy. 
Bob,  right  from  the  start,  was  what  I 

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THE  OPERATOR'S  STORY 


call  a  good-looker,  and,  being  the  eld- 
est boy,  he  had  more  of  the  swing  any- 
way. When  Martin  came  along,  his 
mother  hadn't  got  over  thinking  about 
Bob.  Doubtless  she  thought,  too,  of 
Martin;  but  he  was  kind  of  over- 
shadowed. Bob  began  by  clerking  in 
the  post-office  and  delivering  mail  to 
all  the  pretty  girls.  His  sympathy  for 
the  girls  was  so  great  that  after  a 
while  he  began  passing  out  letters  to 
them  whether  they  were  addressed  to 
the  girls  or  to  somebody  else.  This 
gradually  weakened  his  influence  with 
the  government. 

Martin  began  work  in  the  tele- 
graph office;  he  really  learned  the 
whole  thing  right  there  at  the  Bend 
under  Callahan.  B^[an,  carrying 
Western  Unions  stuck  at  his  waist 
under  a  heavy  leather  belt.  He  wore 
in  those  days,  when  he  had  real  re- 
sponsibility, a  formidable  brown  Stet- 
son that  appeared  bent  on  swallowing 
his  ears :  it  was  about  the  time  he  was 
rising  trousers  and  eleven.  Nobody 
but  Sinkers  ever  beat  Martin  Duffy 
delivering  messages,  and  nobody,  bar 
none — Bullhead,  McTerza,  anybody — 
ever  beat  him  eating  pie.  It  was  by 
eating  pie  that  he  was  able  to  wear 
the  belt  so  long — ^and  you  may  take 
that  either  way.  But  I  speak  gladly  of 
the  pie,  because  in  the  usual  course  of 
events  there  isn't  much  pie  in  a  de- 
spatcher's  life.  There  is,  by  very 
large  odds,  more  anxiety  than  pie, 
and  I  introduce  the  pie,  not  to  give 
weight  to  the  incidents  that  follow, 
but  rather  to  lighten  them ;  though  as 
Duffy  has  more  recently  admitted,  this 
was  not  always  the  effect  of  the  pie 
itself. 

I  do  not  believe  that  Martin  Duffy 
ever  had  an   enemy.     A    rig^ht   tight 


little  chap  he  was,  with  always  a  good 
word,  even  under  no  end  of  pressure 
on  the  single  track.  There's  many  a 
struggling  trainman  that  will  look 
quick  and  grateful  when  any  fellow 
far  or  near  speaks  a  word  about  Mar- 
tin Duffy.  Fast  as  he  climbed,  his 
head  never  swelled.  His  hats  rested, 
even  after  he  got  a  key,  same  as  the 
original  Stetson,  right  on  the  wings 
of  his  ears.  But  his  heart  grew  right 
along  after  his  head  stopped,  and 
that's  where  he  laid  over  some  other 
railroad  men  I  could  mention  if  I  had 
to,  which  I  don't — ^not  here. 

About  the  time  it  looked  as  if 
Martin  would  make  a  go  of  it  on  the 
road,  the  post-office  inspectors  were 
thinking  Bob  would  make  a  go  of  it 
over  the  road.  But  he  was  such  a  kid 
of  a  fellow  that  the  postmaster  con- 
vinced the  detective  that  Bob's  way 
of  doing  things  was  simple  foolish- 
ness, which  it  probably  was,  and 
they  merely  swore  him  out  of  tlie 
service. 

It  was  then  that  Martin  reached  out 
a  hand  to  his  elder  brother.  There 
were  really  just  the  two  brothers ;  and 
back  of  them — as  there  is,  somewhere, 
back  of  every  railroad  man — a  mother. 
No  father — not  generally;  just  a 
mother.  A  quiet,  sombre  little  woman 
in  a  shawl  and  a  bonnet  of  no  special 
shape  or  size — just  a  shawl  and  a  bon- 
net, that's  all.  Anyhow,  the  Duffy 
boys'  mother  was  that  way,  and  there's 
a  lot  more  like  her.  I  don't  know  what 
gets  the  fathers;  may  be,  very  often, 
the  scrap.  But  there's  almost  always, 
somewhere,  a  mother.  So  after  Mar- 
tin began  to  make  a  record,  to  help 
his  mother  and  his  brother  both,  he 
spoke  for  Bob.  Callahan  didn't  hes- 
itate or  jolly  him  as  he  \xs^  to  do  with 


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a  good  many.  He  thought  the  com- 
pany couldn't  have  too  many  of  the 
Duffy  kind;  so  he  said,  "Yes,  sure." 
And  Bob  Duffy  was  put  at  work — 
same  thing  exactly:  carrying  mes- 
sages, reading  hair-destroyers  and 
blowing  his  salary  on  pie. 

But  pie  acts  queer.  Sometimes  it 
makes  a  man's  head  solid  and  his  heart 
big;  then  again  it  makes  a  man's  head 
big  and  his  heart  solid.  Vm  not  say- 
ing anything  more  now  except  that  pie 
certainly  acts  different. 

Bob  Duffy  was  taller  than  Martin 
and,  I  would  repeat,  handsomer ;  but  I 
can't,  because  Martin  had  absolutely 
no  basis  of  beauty  to  start  with.  He 
was  parchment-like  and  palish  from 
sitting  night  after  night  and  night 
after  night  over  a  sounder.  Never  a 
sick  day  in  his  life;  but  always  over 
the  sounder  until,  sleeping  or  waking, 
resting  or  working,  the  current  purred 
and  purred  through  his  great  little 
head  like  a  familiarity-taking  old  tom- 
cat. He  could  g^ess  more  off  a  wire 
than  most  men  could  catch  after  the 
whole  thing  had  tumbled  in. 

So  up  and  up  ladder  he  went.  Mes- 
senger, operator — up  to  assistant  de- 
spatcher,  up  to  a  regular  trick 
despatched.  Up  to  the  orders  and 
signing  the  J.  M.  C,  the  letters  that 
stood  for  our  superintendent's  name 
and  honor.  Up  to  the  trains  and  their 
movement,  up  to  tllfc  lives,  then 
CHIEF  I — with  the  honor  of  the  divi- 
sion all  clutched  in  Martin  Duffy's 
three  quick  right  fingers  on  the  key 
and  his  three  quick  left  fingers  on  the 
pen  at  the  same  instant  scratching  or- 
ders across,  the  clip.  Talk  about  ambi- 
dexterity— Martin  didn't  know  what 
it  would  be  like  to  use  one  hand  at  a 
time.     If  Martin   Duffy   said   right, 


trains  went  right.  If  he  said  wrong, 
trains  went  wrong.  But  Martin  never 
said  the  wrong ;  he  said  only  the  right 
Giddings  knows;  he  copied  for  him 
long  enough.  Giddings  and  plenty 
more  of  them  can  tell  all  about  Martin 
Duffy. 

Bob  didn't  rise  in  the  service  quite 
so  fast  as  Martin.  He  was  rather 
for  having  a  good  time.  He  did  more 
of  the  social  act,  and  that  pleased  his 
mother,  who,  on  account  of  her  bon- 
net-and-shawl  complexion,  didn't 
achieve  much  that  way.  Martin,  too, 
was  proud  of  his  brother,  and  as  soon 
as  Bob  could  handle  a  wire,  which  was 
very  soon  (for  he  learned  things  in  no 
time),  Martin  got  Calahan  to  put  him 
up  at  Grant  as  operator.  Bob  got  the 
place  because  he  was  Martin's  brother, 
nothing  else.  He  held  it  about  two 
months,  when  he  resigned  and  went  to 
San  'Frisco.  He  was  a  restless  fel- 
low; it  was  Bob  up  and  Bob  down. 
For  a  year  he  wandered  around  out 
there,  telegraphing,  then  he  bobbed  up 
again  in  Medicine  Bend  out  of  a  job. 
He  wanted  to  go  to  work,  and — well, 
Callahan — Martin's  brother,  you  know 
— sent  him  up  to  Montair  as  night 
operator.  Three  months  he  worked 
steady  as  a  clock.  Then  one  night  the 
despatchers  at  the  Bend  couldn't  get 
Montair  for  two  hours.  It  laid  out 
Number  Six  and  a  Special  with  the 
general  manager  and  made  no  end  of 
a  row. 

Martin  said  right  off  he  ought  to  go. 
But  there  was  the  little  mother  up 
home,  silent,  I  expect,  but  pleading- 
like. It  was  left  largely  to  Martin,  for 
the  young  fellow  was  already  chief; 
and  that  was  the  trouble — ^he  hated  to 
bear  down  too  hard;  so  he  compro- 
mised  by  asking  his   superintendent 


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THE  OPERATOR'S  STORY 


not  to  fire  Bob,  but  to  set  him  back. 
They  sent  him  up  as  night  man  to  Rat 
River,  the  meanest  place  on  the  whole 
system.  That  was  the  summer  of  the 
Templars'  Conclave  at  San  'Frisco. 

We  worked  the  whole  spring  get- 
ting things  up  along  the  line,  from 
Omaha  to  the  Sierras,  for  that  Con- 
clave. Engines  were  overhauled,  roll- 
ing stock  touched  up,  roadbed  put  in 
shape,  everything  shaken  from  end  to 
end.  Not  only  were  the  passenger  rec- 
ords to  be  smashed,  but  beyond  that  a 
lot  of  our  big  general  officers  were 
way-up  Masons  and  meant  that  our 
line  should  get  not  merely  the  cream 
of  the  business,  but  the  cream  of  the 
advertising  out  of  the  thing.  The  gen- 
eral tenor  of  the  instructions  was  to 
nickel-plate  everything,  from  the  catal- 
pas  to  the  target  rods.  For  three 
months  before  the  Conclave  date  we 
were  busy  getting  ready  for  it,  and 
when  the  big  day  drew  near  on  which 
we  were  to  undertake  the  moving  and 
the  feeding  of  six  thousand  people  one 
way  on  one  track  through  the  moun- 
tains, the  cartinks  smoked  cross-cut 
and  the  Russian  sectionmen  began  to 
oil  their  hair. 

Callahan  was  superintendent  under 
Bucks,  then  General  Manager,  and 
Martin  Duffy  Chief  Despatcher, 
Neighbor  Superintendent  of  Motive 
Power,  and  Doubleday  Division 
AT  aster  Mechanic,  and  with  every 
thing  buttoned  up  on  the  West  End 
we  went  that  Sunday  morning  on  the 
firing  line  to  take  the  first  of  the 
Templar  Specials. 

Medicine  Bend  had  the  alkali  pretty 
well  washed  out  of  its  eyes,  and  never 
before  in  its  history  had  it  appeared 
really  gay.  The  old  Wickiup  was  dec- 
orated till  it  looked  like  a'  buck  rigged 


for  a  ghost  dance.  Right  after  day- 
break the  trains  began  rolling  in  on 
Harold  Davis's  trick.  Duflfy  had  an- 
nulled all  local  freights  and  aJl  through 
odds  and  evens,  all  stock  tramps  east 
and  all  west-bound  empties — every- 
thing that  could  be  had  been  sus- 
pended for  that  Sunday;  and  with  it 
all  there  were  still  by  five  times  more 
trains  than  ever  before  rolled  through 
Medicine  Bend  in  twenty-four  hours. 

It  was  like  a  festival  day  in  the 
mountains.  Even  the  Indians  and  the 
squaw  men  turned  out  to  see  the  fun. 
There  was  a  crowd  at  the  depot  by  five 
o'clock,  when  the  first  train  rolled  up 
the  lower  gorge  with  St.  John's  Com- 
mandery.  Number  Three,  from  Buf- 
falo ;  and  the  Pullmans  were  gay  with 
bunting.  The  Medicine  Bend  crowd 
gave  them  an  Indian  yeJl,  and  in  two 
minutes  the  Knights,  with  their  scalps 
in  their  hands  as  a  token  of  surrender, 
were  tumbling  out  of  their  sleepers 
into  the  crisp  dawn.  They  were  just 
like  schoolboys,  and  when  Shorty 
Lovelace — the  local  curiosity  who  had 
both  feet  and  both  hands  frozen  off  the 
night  he  got  drunk  with  Matt  Cas- 
sidy  at  Goose  River  Junction — struck 
up  on  his  mouth-organ  "Put  Me  Off 
at  Buffalo,"  they  dropped  seven  dol- 
lars, odd,  and  three  baggage  checks 
into  his  hat  while  the  crews  were 
changing  engines.  It  appeared  to  af- 
fect them  uncommon,  to  see  a  fellow 
without  any  hands  or  feet  play  the 
mouth-organ,  and  before  sun-down 
Shorty  made  the  killing  of  his  life. 
With  what  he  raked  in  that  day  he 
kept  the  city  marshal  guessing  for 
three  months — which  was  also  pretty 
good  for  a  man  without  any  hands  or 
feet. 

All  day  it  was  that  way;  train  after 


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train  and  ovation  after  ovation.  The 
day  was  cool  as  a  watermelon — Au- 
gust— and  bright  as  a  baby's  face  all 
through  the  mountains ;  and  the  Tem- 
plars went  up  into  the  high  passes  with 
all  the  swing  and  noise  we  could  raise. 
Harold  Davis  took  it  all  morning 
steady  from  4  A.  M.  at  the  despatch- 
er's  key.  He  was  used  up  long  before 
noon ;  but  he  stayed,  and  just  at  twelve 
o'clock,  while  a  big  Templar  train 
from  Baltimore  was  loading  its  com- 
mandery  in  front  of  the  Wickiup  after 
an  early  dinner,  and  a  big  Templar 
band  played  a  tingling  two-step,  Mar- 
tin Duffy  stuck  his  dry,  parchment 
face  into  the  platform  crowd,  elbowed 
his  way  unnoticed  through  it,  climbed 
the  Wickiup  stairs,  walked  into  the  de- 
spatchers'  room,  and,  throwing  off  his 
hat  and  coat,  leaned  over  Harold 
Davis's  shoulder  and  took  a  transfer. 
Young  Giddings  had  been  sitting 
there  in  a  perspiration  half  an  hour 
then ;  he  copied  for  Martin  Duffy  that 
day.  At  noon  they  figured  to  get  the 
last  Templar  over  the  Eagle  Pass  with 
the  set  of  the  sun.  When  Duffy  took 
the  key  he  never  looked  his  force 
cleaner,  only  he  was  tired;  Giddings 
could  see  that.  The  regular  man  had 
been  sick  a  week  and  Martin  had  been 
filling  in.  Besides  that,  all  Saturday, 
the  day  before,  he  had  been  spiking 
the  line — figuring  what  could  be  an- 
nulled and  what  couldn't;  what  could 
be  run  extra  and  what  could  be  put 
into  regulars.  Callahan  had  just  got 
married  and  was  going  out  to  the 
Coast  on  his  wedding  tour  in  Bucks' 
car.  He  had  refused  to  look  at 
an  order  after  Saturday  night. 
Sunday  morning,  and  from  Sunday 
morning  on,  it  was  all  against  Duffy. 
When  the  chief  took  the  middle  trick 


there  were  fourteen  Templar  Specials 
still  to  come  with  the  last  one  just 
pulling  out  of  McQoud  on  the 
plains.  They  were  ordered  to 
run  with  right  of  track  over  all  east- 
bound  trains  thirty  minutes  apart  all 
the  way  through. 

A  minute  after  Martin  Duffy  sat  in, 
the  conductor  of  the  train  below  r^s- 
tered  out.  There  was  a  yell  pretty 
soon,  and  away  went  the  Baltimore 
crowd — ^and  they  were  corkers,  jtoo, 
those  Baltimore  fellows,  and  travelled 
like  lords. 

At  five  o'clock  in  the  evening  the 
trains  in  the  West  Division  were  mov- 
ing just  like  clocks  on  the  hour  and 
the  half — ^thirty  minutes,  thirty  min- 
utes, thirty  minutes — ^and,  as  far  as 
young  Giddings  could  see,  Duffy,  after 
five  booming  hours,  was  fresher  than 
when  he  took  the  chair.  The  little  de- 
spatcher's  capacity  for  work  was 
something  enormous;  it  wasn't  till 
after  supper  time,  with  the  worst  of 
the  figuring  behind  him,  and  in  the  let- 
ting down  of  the  anxiety,  that  Martin 
began  to  look  older  and  his  dry  Indian 
hair  began  to  crawl  over  his  forehead. 
By  that  time  his  eyes  had  lost  their 
snap,  and  when  he  motioned  Giddings 
to  the  key,  and  got  up  to  walk  up  and 
down  the  hall  in  the  breeze,  he  looked 
like  a  wilted  potato  vine.  His  last 
batch  of  orders  was  only  a  little  one 
compared  with  those  that  had  gone 
before.  But  with  the  changes  to  the 
different  crews  they  read  about  like 
this— 

Telegraphic  Train  Order  Number 
68.    Mountain  Division. 
Superintendent's  Office, 

August  8,  1892. 

For  Medicine  Bend  to  C.  and  E.  of 
Engines  664,  738,  810,  326,  and  826. 


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THE  OPERATOR'S  STORY 


Engines  664,  738,  810,  and  326  will 
run  as  four  Specials,  Medicine  Bend 
to  Bear  Dance.  Engine  826  will 
double-head  Special  326  to  summit  of 
Eagle  Pass. 

First  No.  80,  Engine  179,  will  run 
two  hours  thirty  minutes  late  Bear 
Dance  to  Medicine  Bend. 

Second  No.  80,  Engine  264,  will  run 
threo  hours  and  fifteen  minutes  late 
Bear  Dance  to  Medicine  Bend. 

Third  No.  80,  Engine  210,  will  run 
four  hours  and  thirty  minutes  late 
Bear  Dance  to  Medicine  Bend. 

J.  M.  C. 
D. 

When  young  Giddings  sat  in,  the 
sun  was  dropping  between  the  Tetons. 
In  the  yard  the  car-cleaners  were  pol- 
ishing the  plates  on  Bucks'  private 
car  and  the  darkey  cook  was  pulling 
chickens  out  of  the  refrigerator. 
Duffy  had  thirteen  Conclaves  moving 
smoothly  on  the  middle  track.  The 
final  one  was  due,  and  the  hostlers 
were  steaming  down  with  the  double- 
header  to  pull  it  over  the  Pass.  This, 
the  last  of  the  Commandery  trains,was 
to  bring  De  Molay  Command- 
ery Number  Four  of  Pittsburg, 
and  the  orders  were  to  couple  Bucks' 
car  on  to  it  for  the  run  west.  De  Mo- 
lay— and  everybody  had  notice — was 
Bucks'  old  commandery  back  in  Penn- 
sylvania, and  he  was  going  to  the  end 
of  the  division  that  night  with  the 
cronies  of  his  youth.  Little  fellows 
they  were  in  railroading  when  he  rode 
the  goat  with  them,  but  now  mostly, 
like  him,  big  fellows.  Half  a  dozen 
old  salts  had  been  pounding  ahead  at 
him  all  day  over  the  wire.  They  were 
to  join  him  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Calla- 
han for  supper  in  the  private  car,  and 


the  yellow  cider  lay  on  the  thin-shaven 
ice  and  the  mountain  grouse  curled  on 
the  grill  irons  when  De  Molay  Four, 
Pittsburg,  pulled  into  Medicine  Bend. 

We  had  seen  a  good  many  swell 
trains  that  day,  the  swellest  that  ever 
pounded  our  fishplates,  Pullmans  solid, 
and  the  finest  kind  of  people.  Boston, 
Washington,  New  York,  Philadelphia 
sent  some  pretty  gorgeous  trains.  But 
with  at  least  half  the  town  on  the  plat- 
form, when  De  Molay  Four  rolled  in 
it  took  their  breath  so  they  couldn't 
yell  till  the  Sir  Knights  began  pouring 
from  the  vestibules  and  gave  Medi- 
cine Bend  their  own  lordly  cheer. 

Mahogany  vestibules  they  were  and 
extension  platforms;  salon  lamps  and 
nickeled  handrails ;  buffet  smoker  and 
private  diner :  a  royal  train  and  a  royal 
company;  olive  green  from  tender  to 
tail  lights — De  Molay  Four,  Pittsburg. 

Bucks'  old  gang  spied  him.  Mod- 
estly back  under  the  portico,  he  stood 
near  the  ticket  window,  and  they  broke 
through  at  him  solid.  They  pulled 
him  and  hauled  him  and  mauled  him 
and  passed  him  from  hand  to  hand. 
They  stood  him  on  his  head  and  on 
his  hands  and  on  his  feet  again,  and 
told  him  of  something  they  wanted 
and  wanted  right  off. 

Bucks  looked  the  least  bit  uncertain 
as  he  considered  the  opening  request. 
It  wasn't  much  in  some  ways,  what 
they  asked;  in  other  ways  it  was  a 
good  deal.  He  laughed  and  bantered 
and  joked  them  as  long  as  they  would 
stand  it ;  then  he  called  up  to  Martin 
Duffy,  who  was  leaning  out  the  de- 
spatchers'  window.  "We'll  see  how  he 
talks,"  laughed  Bucks  in  his  great  big 
way.  "But,  boys,  it's  up  to  the  chief. 
Vm  not  in  it  on  the  orders,  you  know. 
Martin,"  he  called,  as  Duffy  bent  his 


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heady  "they  want  fifteen  minutes  here 
to  stretch  their  legs.  Say  they've  been 
roasted  in  the  alkali  all  day.  Can  you 
do  anything  for  the  boys  ?" 

llie  boys!  Big  fellows  in  fezes, 
Shriner  style,  and  slim  fellows  in  duck, 
sailor  style,  and  bow-legged  fellows  in 
cheviot,  any  old  style.  Chaps  in  white 
flannel,  and  chaps  in  gray,  and  chaps 
in  blue.  Turkish  whiskers  and  Key 
West  cigars  and  Crusaders'  togs — 
and,  between  them,  Bucks,  his  head 
most  of  the  time  in  chancery.  It  was 
the  first  time  they  had  seen  him  since 
he  had  made  our  Jim  Crow  line  into  a 
system  known  from  the  Boston  and 
Maine  to  the  Mexican  Central,  and, 
bar  none,  run  cleaner  or  better.  The 
first  time  they  had  seen  him  since  he 
had  made  a  name  for  himself  and  for 
his  road  from  Newport  News  to 
'Frisco,  and  they  meant  now  to  kill 
him,  dead. 

You  know  about  what  it  meant  and 
about  how  it  went,  how  it  had  to  go. 
What  could  Martin  say  to  the  man 
who  had  made  him  all  he  was  and  who 
stood,  now  a  boy  again  among  the  boys 
of  his  boyhood,  and  asked  for  fifteen 
minutes — ^a  quarter  of  an  hour  for  De 
Molay  Number  Four?  It  threw  the 
little  chief  completely  off  his  schedule ; 
just  fifteen  minutes  was  more  than 
enough  to  do  that.  All  the  work  was 
done,  the  anxiety  nearly  past — Martin 
had  risen  to  rest  his  thumping  head. 
But  fifteen  minutes ;  once  in  a  lifetime 
— Bucks  asking  it. 

Duffy  turned  to  big  Jack  Moore 
standing  at  his  side  ready  to  pull  De 
Alolay  over  the  Pass,  and  spoke  to  him 
low.  Jack  nodded;  everything  went 
with  Jack,  even  the  turn-tables  that 
stuck  with  other  engineers.  Martin  in 
his  shirt-sleeves  leaned  out  the  win- 


dow and,  looking  down  on  the 
turbaned  and  turbulent  mob,  spoke  so 
Bucks  could  hear. 

'*What  is  it?"  demanded  the  most 
puissant  commander  of  De  Molay,  ex- 
citedly.   "What  does  he  say,  Bucks?" 

"What  says  the  slave?"  gp"owled  a 
second  formidable  crusader;  "out 
with  it!" 

"All  we  want  is  fifteen  minutes." 

"You  wouldn't  turn  us  down  on  fif- 
teen minutes  this  far  from  an  oasis, 
would  you,  Bucks  ?"  protested  a  glass- 
eyed  Shriner. 

Bucks  looked  around  royally.  "Fif- 
teen minutes?"  he  drawled.  "What's 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  in  a  lifetime, 
Jackman,  on  the  last  oasis  ?  Take  off 
your  clothes,  you  fellows,  and  take 
half  an  hour.    Now  will  you  be  good  ?" 

De  Molay  put  up  a  Templar  yell. 
They  always  get  the  good  things  of 
life,  those  Pittsburg  men ;  things  other 
fellows  couldn't  begin  to  get.  They 
passed  the  word  through  the  sleepers, 
and  the  women  began  pouring  from 
the  vestibules.  In  two  quick  minutes 
out  came  the  Duquesne  band  in  red 
pompons,  duck  trousers  and  military 
jackets,  white  corded  with  black.  The 
crowd  broke,  the  band  marched  down 
the  platform  and,  striking  up  the 
"Washington  Post,"  opened  ranks  on 
the  grass  plot  above  the  Wickiup  to 
receive  the  De  Molay  guard.  One 
hundred  Knights  Templar  in  fatigue 
debouched  into  a  bit  of  a  park,  and  in 
the  purple  of  the  sunset  gave  a  com- 
mandery  drill  to  the  honor  of  Bucks — 
Bucks  and  the  West  End. 

It  was  Sunday  night,  and  still  as 
August  could  make  it.  The  battalion 
moving  silent  and  mobile  as  a  steamer 
over  the  grass,  marched,  deployed  and 
rested.   They  broke,  to  the  dear-cut 


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musici  into  crosses  and  squares  and 
crescents  and  stars  until  small  boys 
went  cross-eyed,  and  wheeling  at  last 
on  the  line,  they  saluted  Bucks — him- 
self a  past  grand  commander — and  the 
railroad  men  yelled. 

Meantime  the  general  manager's 
private  car  had  been  pasted  on  the  tail- 
end  of  De  Molay  Four,  and  a  pusher 
edging  up^  stuck  its  nose  into  the,  rear 
vestibule.  On  the  head  end  Jack 
Moore  and  Oyster  were  backing  down 
on  the  olive-green  string  with  the  two 
smoothest  moguls  on  the  division. 
Bucks  and  Neighbor  had  held  back 
ever3rthing  good  all  day  for  De  Molay 
Four,  down  to  engines  and  runners 
and  conductor.  Pat  Francis  carried 
the  punch,  and  the  little  chief  sat 
again  in  the  despatcher's  chair  for  De 
Molay  Four. 

And  while  the  lovely  women  strolled 
in  the  cool  of  the  evening  and  the  odor 
of  mountain  sweetness,  and  the  guard 
drilled,  and  the  band  played,  the  chief 
knit  his  brows  over  his  train  sheet.  It 
looked  now,  rearranged,  reordered,  re- 
adjusted and  reorganized,  as  if  a  Gila 
Monster  had  crawled  over  it  without 
wiping  his  feet.  And  when  De  Molay 
Four  got  ready  to  pull  out,  with  Moore 
and  Oyster  on  the  throttles  and  old 
John  Parker  in  the  baggage,  where  he 
had  absolutely  nothing  to  do  but  drink 
cigars  and  smoke  champagne,  and  Pat 
Francis  in  the  aisles,  and  Bucks,  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Callahan  and  their 
crowd,  in  private  Number  Twelve — 
there  was  that  much  shouting  and 
tooting  and  waving  that  Martin  Duffy 
simply  couldn't  think  for  a  few  sec- 
onds ;  yet  he  held  them  all,  for  life  or 
for  death,  every  last  one,  in  the  curve 
of  his  fingers. 

So  they  stood  ready  in  the  gorge 


while  Duffy  studied  wearily  how  to 
handle  First,  Second  and  Third 
Eighty  against  them. 

First,  Second  and  Third  Eighty!  If 
they  could  only  have  been  wiped  off 
the  face  of  the  rails  as  easy  as  they 
might  have  been  wiped  off  a  train 
sheet  I  But  there  they  were,  three  sec- 
tions, and  big  ones,  of  the  California* 
fast  freight.  High-class  stuff  for  Chi- 
cago and  New  York  that  couldn't  be 
held  or  laid  out  that  Sunday,  not  for 
a  dozen  Conclaves.  All  day  First, 
Second  and  Third  Eighty  had  been 
feeling  their  way  east  through  the 
mountains,  trying  to  dodge  the  swell 
commanderies  rolling  by  impudent  as 
pay  cars.  But  all  the  final  plans  to 
keep  them  out  of  everybod/s  way,  out 
of  the  way  of  fez  and  turban  and 
diapeau  and  Greek  cross  and  crimson- 
splashed  sleepers,  were  now  dashed 
by  thirty  mjinutes  at  Medicine  for 
De  Molay  Four. 

Order  after  order  went  from  under 
his  hand.  New  meeting  points  for 
First,  Second  and  Third  Eighty  and 
DeMolay  Four,  otherwise  Special  326. 

Pat  Francis  snatched  the  tissues 
from  Duffy's  hand,  and,  after  the  bat- 
talion had  dispersed  among  their  wives 
and  sisters,  and  among  the  sisters  of 
the  other  fellow ;  after  the  pomponed 
chaps  had  chucked  the  trombones  and 
cymbals  and  drums  at  old  John  Par- 
ker's shins ;  after  the  last  air-cock  had 
been  tested  and  the  last  laggard  cru- 
sader thrown  forcibly  aboard  by  the 
provost  guard,  the  double-header 
tooted,  '*Out  1"  and,  with  the  flutter  of 
an  ocean  liner,  De  Molay  Four  pulled 
up  the  gorge. 

The  orders  buttoned  in  the  reefers 
gave  De  Molay  a  free  sweep  to  Elcho, 
and  Jack  Moore  and  Oyster  were  die 


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365 


men  to  take  it,  good  and  hard.  More- 
over, there  was  glory  aboard.  Penn- 
sylvania nobs,  way-up  railroad  men, 
waiting  to  see  what  for  motive  power 
we  had  in  the  Woolly  West;  how  we 
climbed  mountains  and  skirted  canon 
walls,  and  crawled  down  two  and  three 
per  cent  grades.  Then  with  Bucks 
himself  in  the  private  car — ^.what  won- 
der they  let  her  out  and  swung  De 
Molay  through  the  gorge  as  may  be 
you've  seen  a  particularly  buoyant  kite 
snake  its  tail  out  of  the  grass  and 
drag  it  careening  skyward.  When 
they  slowed  for  Elcho  at  nightfall,  past 
First  and  Second  Eighty,  and  Bucks 
named  the  mileage,  the  Pennsys  re- 
fused to  believe  it  for  the  hour's  run. 
But  fast  as  they  had  sped  along  the 
iron  trail,  Martin  DuflEy's  work  had 
sped  ahead  of  them,  and  this  order 
was  waiting: 

Telegraphic  Train  Order  Niunber 

79. 

C.  and  E.  Third  No.  80,  Rat  River. 
C.  and  E.  Special  326,  Elcho. 
Third  No.  80,  Engine  210,  and  Spe- 
cial 326  will  meet  at  Rock  Point. 

J.  M.  C 
D. 

With  this  meeting  point  made,  it 
would  be  pretty  mudi  over  in  the  de- 
spatcher's  oflfice.  Martin  Duflfy  pushed 
his  sallow  hair  back  for  the  last  time, 
and,  leaving  young  Giddings  to  get 
the  last  O.  K.'s  and  the  last  Com- 
plete on  his  trick,  got  out  of  the  chair. 

It  had  been  a  tremendous  day  for 
Giddings,  a  tremendous  day.  Thirty- 
two  Specials  on  the  de^patchers,  and 
Giddings  cop)ring  for  the  chief.  He 
sat  down  after  Duffy,  filled  with  a 
riotous   importance   because    it    was 


now,  in  eflfect,  all  up  to  Giddings,  per- 
sonally; at  least  until  Barnes  Tracy 
should  presently  kick  him  out  of  tlie 
seat  of  honor  for  the  night  trick.  Mr. 
Giddings  sat  down  and  waited  for  the 
signature  of  the  orders. 

Very  soon  Pat  Francis  dropped  oflE 
De  Molay  Four,  slowing  at  Eldio,  ran 
straight  to  the  operator  for  his  order, 
signed  it  and  at  once  Order  79  was 
throbbing  back  to  young  Giddings  at 
Medicine  Bend.  It  was  precisely  7.54 
P.  M.  when  Giddings  gave  back  the 
Complete  and  at  7.55  Elcho  reported 
Special  326,  "out,"  aU  just  like  clock- 
work. What  a  head  Martin  DuflEy 
has,  thought  young  Giddings — and 
behold  1  all  the  complicated  ever-last- 
ing headwork  of  the  trick  and  the  day, 
and  of  the  West  End  and  its  honor, 
was  now  up  to  the  signature;  of  Third 
Eighty  at  Rat  River.  Just  Third 
Eighty's  signature  for  the  Rock  Point 
meeting,  and  the  biggest  job  ever 
tackled  by  a  single-track  road  in 
America  (Giddings  thought)  was 
done  and  well  done. 

So  the  ambitious  Giddings  by 
means  of  a  pocket  mirror  inspected  a 
threatening  pimple  on  the  end  of  his 
chubby  nose,  palming  the  glass  skil- 
fully so  Barnes  Tracy  couldn't  see  it 
even  if  he  did  interrupt  his  eruption, 
and  waited  for  Bob  DuflEy,  the  Rat 
River  nightman,  to  come  back  at  him 
with  Third  Eighty's  signature.  Under 
Giddings'  eye,  as  he  sat,  ticked  Martin 
Duffy's  chronometer — the  watch  that 
split  the  seconds  and  chimed  the  quar- 
ters and  stopped  and  started  so  impos- 
sibly and  ran  to  a  second  a  month — 
the  watch  that  Bucks  (who  never  did 
things  by  halves)  had  given  little 
Martin  Duffy  with  the  order  that 
made  him  chief.     It  lay  at  Giddings' 


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fingers,  and  the  minute  hand  wiped 
from  the  enamelled  dial  seven  o'clock, 
fifty-five,  fifty-six,  seven,  eight — ^nine. 
Young  Giddings  turned  to  his  order 
book  and  inspected  his  entries  like  a 
methodical  book-keeper,  and  Martin 
Duflfy's  chronometer  chimed  the 
fourth  quarter,  eight  o'clock.  One 
entry  he  had  still  to  make.  Book  in 
hand  he  called  Rat  River. 

"Get  Third  Eighty's  signature  to 
Order  79  and  hurry  them  out,"  he 
tapped  impatiently  at  Bob  Duflfy. 

There  was  a  wait.  Giddings  lighted 
his  pipe  the  way  Callahan  always 
lighted  his  pipe — ^putting  out  his  lips 
to  catch  all  the  perfume  and  blowing 
the  first  cloud  away  wearily,  as  Calla- 
han always  did  wearily.  Then 
he  twirled  the  match  meditatively,  and 
listened. 

What  he  got  suddenly  from  Bob 
Duffy  at  Rat  River  was  this : 

"I  forgot  Order  79,"  came  Bob 
Duflfy's  message.  "I  let  Third  Eighty 
go  without  it.  They  left  here  at  seven 
— ^fifty" — fifty  something,  Giddings 
never  heard  fifty  what.  The  match 
went  into  the  ink,  the  pipe  into  the 
water-pail,  and  Giddings,  before  Bob 
Duffy  finished,  like  a  drowning  man 
was  calling  Elcho  with  the  life  and 
death,  the  Nineteen  call. 

"Hold  Special  326!''  he  cried  over 
the  wire  the  instant  Elcho  replied. 

But  Elcho,  steadily,  answered  this: 

"Special  —  Three-twenty-six  — 
left — ^here — seven-fifty-five." 

Giddings,  with  both  hands  on  the 
table,  raised  up  like  a  drunken  man. 
The  West  End  was  against  it.  Third 
Eighty  in  the  open  and  going  against 
the  De  Molay  Four.  Bucks,  Callahan, 
wife — everybody — and  Rock  Point  a 
blind  siding  that  no  word  from  any- 


body on  earth  could  reach  ahead  of 
Third  Eighty. 

Giddings  sprang  to  the  open  win- 
dow and  shouted  to  anybody  and 
everybody  to  call  Martin  Duflfy.  But 
Martin  Duflfy  spoke  beliind  him. 

"What  do  you  want?"  he  asked;  it 
came  terribly  quick  on  Giddings  as  he 
turned. 

"What's  the  matter?"  exclaimed 
Martin,  looking  into  the  boy's  face. 
"Speak,  can't  you?  What's  the  mat- 
ter, Giddings?" 

"Bob  forgot  Order  79  and  let  Third 
Eighty  go  without — ^and  Special  326 
is  out  of  Elcho,"  choked  Giddings. 

'Whatr 

"Bob  at— Rat  River— gave  Third 
Eighty  a  clearance  without  the  Order 

79-" 

Martin  Duflfy  sprang  straight  up  in 
the  air.  Once  he  shut  his  lifted  hands ; 
once  he  looked  at  Giddings,  stagger- 
ing again  through  the  frightful  news, 
then  he  dropped  into  the  chair,  looked 
wildly  around,  seized  his  key  like  a 
hunted  man,  stared  at  his  train  sheet, 
grabbed  the  order  book,  and  listened 
to  Giddings  cutting  oflf  one  hope  after 
another  of  stopping  Special  326.  His 
fingers  set  mechanically  and  he  made 
the  Rat  River  call ;  but  Rat  River  was 
silent.  With  Barnes  Tracy  tiptoeing 
in  behind  on  the  instinct  of  trouble  and 
young  Giddings  shaking  like  a  leaf, 
the  chief  called  Rat  River.  Then  he 
called  Elcho,  asked  for  Special  326, 
and  Elcho  again  repeated  steadily : 

"Special  —  326  —  left  —  here  — 
on  —  Order  —  79  —  at  —  seven-fifty- 
five  P.  M." 

Martin  Duflfy  bent  before  the  mes- 
sage; young  Giddings,  who  had  been 
whispering  to  Tracy,  dropped  on  a 
stool  and  covered  his  face. 


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"Don't  cry,  Giddings."  It  was 
Duffy  who  spoke ;  dry  and  parched  his 
voice.  "It's  nothing  you — could 
help."  He  looked  around  and  saw 
Tracy  at  his  elbow.  "Barnes,"  he  said, 
but  he  tried  twice  before  his  voice 
would  carry.  "Barnes — they  will 
meet  in  the  Cinnamon  cut.  Gid- 
dings told  you?  Bob  forgot,  forgot 
my  order.  Run,  Giddings,  for  Bene- 
dict Morgan  and  Doubleday  and  Car- 
hart — quick  r 

Giddings  ran,  the  Rat  River  call 
echoing  again  down  the  hall  behind 
him.  Rat  River  was  closest  to  Rock 
Point — would  get  the  first  news  of  the 
wreck,  and  Martin  Duflfy  was  calling 
his  recreant  brother  at  the  River ;  but 
the  River  was  silent. 

Doubleday  and  the  company  sur- 
geon. Dr.  Carhart,  rushed  into  the 
room  almost  together.  Then  came 
with  a  storm  the  wrecking  boss,  Bene- 
dict Morgan ;  it  was  only  an  evil  hour 
that  brought  Benedict  Morgan  into 
the  despatchers'  office.  Stooped  and 
silent,  Martin  Duffy,  holding  the 
chair,  was  calling  Rat  River.  Carhart 
watched  him  just  a  moment,  then  he 
took  Barnes  Tracy  aside  and  whis- 
pered— and,  going  back,  bent  over 
Duffy.     The  chief  pulled  himself  up. 

"Let  Tracy  take  the  key,"  repeated 
the  doctor.  "Get  away  from  the  table 
a  minute,  Martin.  It  may  not  be  as 
bad  as  you  tfiink." 

Duffy,  looking  into  the  surgeon's 
face,  put  his  hand  on  his  arm.  "It's 
the  De  Molay  train,  the  Special  326, 
v/ith  Bucks'  car,  double-headed.  Oh, 
my  God — I  can't  stop  them.  Doctor, 
they  will  meet!" 

Carhart  unfastened  the  fingers  on 
his  arm.  "Come  away  a  minute.  Let 
Tracy  have  the  key,"  he  urged. 


"A  head-ender,  eh?"  croaked  Bene- 
dict Morgan  from  the  counter,  and 
with  a  frightful  oath.  "A  head- 
ender!" 

"Shut  up,  you  brute!"  hissed 
Carhart.  Duffy's  hands  were  creep- 
ing queerly  up  the  sides  of  his  head. 

"Sure,"  growled  Benedict  Morgan, 
loweringly,  "sure.  Shut  up.  Of  course. 
Shut  up." 

Carhart  was  a  quick  man.  He 
started  for  the  wrecker,  but  Duffy, 
springing,  stopped  him.  "For  God's 
sake,  keep  cool,  everybody,"  he  ex- 
claimed, piteously.  There  was  no  one 
else  to  talk,  to  give  the  orders.  Bucks 
and  Callahan  both  on  the  Special — 
may  be  past  order-giving  now.  Only 
Martin  Duffy  to  take  the  double  load 
and  the  double  shame.  He  stared 
dazed  again,  into  the  faces  around  as 
he  held  to  the  fiery  surgeon.  "Mor- 
gan," he  added  steadily,  looking  at  the 
surly  wrecker,  "get  up  your  crew, 
quick.  Doubleday,  make  up  all  the 
coaches  in  the  yard  for  an  ambulance 
train.  Get  every  doctor  in  town  to 
go  with  you.    Tracy,  clear  the  line." 

The  Master  Mechanic  and  Benedict 
Morgan  clattered  down-stairs.  Car- 
hart, running  to  the  telephone,  told 
Central  to  summon  every  medical  man 
in  the  Bend,  and  hurried  out.  Before 
he  had  covered  a  block,  round-house 
callers,  like  flaws  of  wind  before  a 
storm,  were  scurrying  the  streets,  and 
from  the  tower  of  the  fire-house 
sounded  the  harsh  clang  of  the  emer- 
gency gong  for  the  wreckers. 

Caught  where  they  could  be  caught, 
out  of  saloons,  beds,  poker  joints.  Sal- 
vation barracks,  churches, — the  men 
of  the  wrecking  crew  ran  down  the 
silent  streets,  waking  now  fast  into 
life.     Congregations    were    dispersed. 


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THE  OPERATOR'S  STORY 


hymns  cut,  prayers  forgotten,  bars  de- 
serted, hells  emptied,  barracks  raided 
as  that  call,  the  emergency  gong  call, 
fell  as  a  fire-bell,  for  the  Mountain 
Divison  wrecking  gang. 

While  the  yard  crews  shot  up  and 
down  the  spurs  switching  coaches  into 
the  relief  train,  Benedict  Morgan  with 
solid  volleys  of  oaths  was  organizing 
his  men  and  filling  them  at  the  lunch 
counters  with  huge  schooners  of 
coffee.  Carhart  pushed  again  through 
the  jam  of  men  and  up  to  the  de- 
spatchers'  office.  Before  and  behind 
him  crowded  the  local  physicians  with 
instrument  bags  and  bandages.  ITie 
ominous  baggage  deposited  on  the 
office  floor,  they  sat  down  about  the 
room  or  hovered  around  Carhart  ask- 
ing for  details.  Doubleday,  tall  and 
grim,  came  over  from  the  round-house. 
Benedict  Morgan  stamped  up  from 
the  yard — the  Mountain  Division  was 
ready. 

All  three  despatchers  were  in  the 
room.  John  Mailers,  the  day  man, 
stood  near  Tracy,  who  had  relieved 
Giddings.  The  line  was  clear  for  the 
relief  run.  Elcho  had  been  notified 
of  the  impending  disaster,  and  at  Tra- 
cy's elbow  sat  the  chief  looking  fix- 
edly at  the  key — taking  the  bob  of  the 
sounder  with  his  eye.  A  dozen  men 
in  the  room  were  talking;  but  they 
spoke  as  men  who  speaking  wait  on 
the  life  of  a  fuse.  Duffy,  with  sus- 
pense deepening  into  a  frenzy,  pushed 
Tracy's  hand  from  the  key  and,  sliding 
into  the  chair,  began  once  more  to  call 
his  brother  at  Rat  River. 

"  R,  T  — R,  T  — R,  T  — R,  T— " 
clicked  the  River  call.  "R,  T  — R, 
T  — ,  R,  T  —  Bob  —  Bob  —  Bob," 
spelled  the  sender.  "Answer  me,  an- 
swer, answer.     R,  T  — R,  T  — R,  T." 


And  Barnes  Tracy  edged  away  and 
lestned  back  to  where  the  shadow  hid 
his  face.  And  John  Mailers,  turning 
from  the  pleading  of  the  current, 
stared  gloomily  out  of  the  window 
across  the  yard  shimmering  under  the 
double  relay  of  arc  lights;  and  young 
Giddings,  who  couldn't  stand  it — just 
cotddn't  stand  it — ^bending  on  his  stool, 
shook  with  gulping  sobs. 

The  others  knew  nothing  of  the 
heartbreaking  in  the  little  click,  click. 
They  all  knew  the  track — knew 
where  the  trains  would  meet;  knew 
they  could  not  by  any  possibility  see 
each  other  till  they  whirled  together 
on  the  curve  of  the  Cinnamon  cut  or 
on  the  trestle  west  of  it,  and  they 
waited  only  for  the  breaking  of  the 
suspense  that  settled  heavily  over 
them. 

Ten,  twenty,  thirty,  forty  minutes 
went,  with  Martin  Duffy  at  intervals 
vainly  calling.  Then — as  the  crack 
opens  in  the  field  of  ice,  as  the  snow 
breaks  in  the  mountain  slide,  as  the 
sea  g^ves  up  at  last  its  dead,  the 
sounder  spoke — Rat  River  made  the 
(lespatcher's  call.  And  Martin  Duffy, 
staring  at  the  copper  coil,  pushed 
himself  up  in  his  chair  like  a  man  that 
chokes,  caught  smothering  at  his 
neck,  and  slipped  wriggling  to  the 
floor. 

Carhart  caught  him  up,  but  Duffy's 
eyes  stared  meaningless  past  him.  Rat 
River  was  calling  him,  but  Martin 
Duffy  was  past  the  taking.  Like  the 
man  next  at  the  gun,  Barnes  Tracy 
sprang  into  the  chair  with  the  I,  I, 
D.  The  surgeon,  Giddings  helping, 
dragged  Duffy  to  the  lounge  in  Cal- 
lahan's room — ^his  chief  was  more  to 
Giddings  than  the  fate  of  Special  326. 
But  soon  confused  voices  b^:an  to 


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THE  OPERATOR'S  STORY 


369 


ring  from  where  men  were  crowd- 
ing around  the  despatchers'  table. 
They  echoed  in  to  where  the  doctors 
worked  over  the  raving  chief.  And 
young  Giddings,  helping,  began,  too, 
to  hear  strange  things  from  the  other 
room. 

"The  moon—" 

"The  moonr 

"The  MOON !" 

'Whatr 

Barnes  Tracy  was  trying  to  make 
himself  heard. 

"The  moon,  damn  it!  MOON! 
That's  English,  ain't  it  ?    Moon." 

"Who's  talking  at  Rat  River?"  de- 
manded  Benedict   Morgan,  hoarsely. 

"Chick  Neale,  conductor  of  Third 
Eighty.  Their,  train  is  back  at  Rat 
River.  God  bless  that  man,"  stam- 
mered Barnes  Tracy,  wiping  his  fore- 
head feverishly;  "he's  an  old  opera- 
tor. He  says  Bob  Duffy  is  missing — 
tell  Martin,  quick,  there  isn't  any 
wreck — quick !" 

"What  does  Neale  say?"  cried 
Doubleday  with  an  explosion. 

Tracy  thought  he  had  told  them,  but 
he  hadn't.  "He  says  his  engineer,  Abe 
Monsoon,  was  scared  by  the  rtioon 
rising  just  as  they  cleared  Kennel 
Butte,"  explained  Tracy  unsteadily. 
"He  took  it  for  the  headlight  of  Spe- 
cial 326  and  jumped  from  his  engine. 
The  fireman  backed  the  train  to  Rat 
River — see?" 

While  Tracy  talked.  Mailers  at  the 
key  was  getting  it  all.  "Look  here," 
he  exclaimed,  "did  you  ever  hear  of 
such  a  mix-up  in  your  life?  The 
head  brakeman  of  the  freight  was  in 
the  cab,  Neale  says.  He  and  the 
engineer  were  talking  about  the  last 
Conclave  train,  wondering  where  they 
were  going  to  meet  it,  when  the  brake- 


man  spied  the  moon  coming  up  around 
Kennel  Butte  curve.  'There's  the  326 
Special!'  he  yelled,  and  lighted  out 
the  gangway.  Monsoon  reversed  and 
jumped  off  after  him  so  quick  he 
knocked  the  fireman  over  in  the  coal. 
When  the  fireman  got  up— he  hadn't 
heard  a  word  of  it  all — he  couldn't 
see  anything  ahead  but  the  moon.  So 
he  stops  the  train  and  backs  up  for 
the  two  guys.  When  Neale  and  he 
picked  them  up  they  ran  right  back  to 
Rat  River  for  orders.  They  never 
got  to  Rock  Point  at  all — why,  they 
never  got  two  miles  east  of  Rat 
River." 

"And  Where's  Special  326?"  cried 
Doubleday. 

"At  Rock  Point,  you  loco.  She 
must  be  there  and  waiting  yet  for 
Third  Eighty.  The  stopping  of  the 
freight  gave  her  plenty  of  time  to 
make  the  meeting  point,  don't  you  see, 
and  there  she  is  —  sweating  —  yet. 
Neale  is  an  old  operator.  By  Heaven ! 
Give  me  a  man  of  the  key  against  the 
world.  Praise  God  from  whom  all 
blessings  flow!" 

"Then  there  isn't  to  be  any 
wreck?"  ventured  a  shy  little  lady 
homeopathic  physician,  who  had  been 
crimped  into  the  fray  to  help  do  up 
the  mangled  Knights  and  was  mod- 
estly waiting  her  opportunity. 

"Not  to-night,"  announced  Tracy 
with  the  dignity  of  a  man  temporarily 
in  charge  of  the  entire  division. 

A  yell  went  out  of  the  room  like  a 
tidal  wave.  Doubleday  and  Benedict 
Morgan  had  not  spoken  to  each  other 
since  the  night  of  the  round-house 
fire — that  was  two  years.  They  turned 
wonder-struck  to  each  other.  Double- 
day  impulsively  put  out  his  hand  and, 
before  he  could  pull  it  in  again,  the 


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370 


THE  OPERATOR'S  STORY 


wrecking  boss  grabbed  it  like  a  pay 
check.  Carhart,  who  was  catching  the 
news  from  the  rattle  of  young  Gid- 
dings,  went  wild  trying  to  repeat  it 
to  Duffy  without  losing  it  in  his 
throat.  The  chief  was  opening  his 
eyes,  trying  to  understand. 

Medical  men  of  violently  differing 
schools,  allopaths,  homeopaths,  osteo- 
paths, electrics — made  their  peace  with 
a  whoop.  A  red-headed  druggist,  who 
had  rung  himself  in  for  a  free  ride 
to  the  horror,  threw  his  emergency 
packets  into  the  middle  of  the  floor. 
The  doctors  caught  ihe  impulse: 
instrument  cases  were  laid  with  sol- 
emn tenderness  on  the  heap,  and  a 
dozen  crazy  men  joining  hands  around 
the  pyred  saws  and  gauze,  struck  up 
"Old  Hundred." 

Engineer  Monsoon  was  a  new  man, 
who  had  been  over  the  division  only 
twice  before  in  his  life,  both  times  in 
daylight.  For  that  emergency  Abe 
Monsoon  was  the  man  of  all  others, 
because  it  takes  more  than  an  ordinary 
moon  to  scare  a  thoroughbred  West 
End  engineer.  But  Monsoon  and  his 
moon  headlight  had  between  them 
saved  De  Molay  Four  from  the  scrap. 

The  relief  arrangements  and  Mon- 
soon's headlight  were  the  fun  of  it, 
but  there  was  more.  Martin  Duffy 
lay  eleven  weeks  with  brain  fever  be- 
fore they  could  say  moon  again  to 
him.  Bob  had  skipped  into  the  moun- 
tains in  the  very  hour  that  he  had  dis- 


graced himself.  He  has  never  shown 
up  at  Medicine  since;  but  Martin  is 
still  chief,  and  they  think  more  of 
him  on  the  Mountain  District  than 
ever. 

Bucks  got  the  whole  thing  when 
De  Molay  Four  reached  Rat  River 
that  night.  Bucks  and  Callahan  and 
Moore  and  Oyster  and  Pat  Francis 
got  it  and  smiled  grimly.  Nobody 
else  on  the  Special  even  dreamed  of 
leaving  a  bone  that  Sunday  night  in 
the  Cinnamon  cut.  All  the  rest  of 
the  evening  Bucks  smiled  just  the 
same  at  the  Knights  and  the  Knight- 
sesses,  and  they  thought  that  for  a 
bachelor  he  was  wonderfully  enter- 
taining. 

A  month  later,  when  the  old  boys, 
more  or  less  ragged,  came  straggling 
back  from  'Frisco,  Bucks'  crowd 
stayed  over  a  train,  and  he  told  his 
Pennsylvania  cronies  what  they  had 
slipped  through  in  that  delay  at  Rock 
Point. 

"Just  luck,"  laughed  one  of  the 
Eastern  superintendents,  who  wore 
on  his  watch  chain  an  enormous  Greek 
cross  with  "Our  Trust  is  in  God"  en- 
graved on  it.  "Just  luck,"  he  laughed, 
"wasn't  it?" 

"May  be,"  murmured  Bucks,  look- 
ing through  the  Wickiup  window  at 
the  Teton  peaks.  "That  is — ^you 
might  call  it  that — ^back  on  the  Penn. 
Out  here  I  guess  they'd  call  it,  Just 
God." 


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Our  New  Secretary  of  War 


One  of  the  most  interesting  figures 
in  national  affairs  to-day  is  Judge 
William  H.  Taft,  who  in  December  is 
to  resign  his  position  as  Civil  Gov- 
ernor of  the  Philippines  to  become 
Secretary  of  War.  So  highly  thought 
of  are  Judge  Taft's  abilities,  and  so 
lX)pular  is  the  genial,  hearty  governor 
of  the  Philippines,  that  he  is  talked  of 
in  many  quarters  as  a  strong  presi- 
dential possibility.  It  is  said  that 
it  took  considerable  persuasion  on 
the  part  of  the  President  to  get 
Governor  Taft  to  come  to  Wash- 
ington,    for    he    is     very     fond    of 


his  work  in  the  Philippines.  He  has 
evidently  become  thoroughly  accli- 
mated, in  spite  of  his  doctor's  predic- 
tion— at  the  time  he  returned  to  this 
country  on  sick  leave — that  he  would 
die  if  he  went  back  to  the  archipel- 
ago. And  the  Filipinos  think  he  is  a 
very  big  man,  indeed — mentally,  as 
well  as  physically. 

Judge  Taft  is  a  living  example  of 
the  theory  that  brains  come  by  inher- 
itance; and  it  is  a  most  interesting 
circumstance  that  his  father,  the  late 
Alphonso  Taft,  was  himself  Secretary 
of  War  for  a  time  in  President  Grant's 

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Mrs.  William  H.  Tapt 

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OUR  NEW  SECRETARY  OF  WAR 


373 


second  Cabinet,  as  he  was  also  attoi- 
ney-general. 

William  H.  Taft  was  born  in  Cin- 
cinnati, September  15,  1857,  ^^^  is  a 
graduate  of  Yale  University  of  the 
class  of  '78.  While  at  college  he  was 
a  leader  of  athletics,  and  was  also 
second-honor  man,  salutatorian  and 
class  orator.  On  returning  to  Cincin- 
nati, he  became  a  newspaper  reporter, 
at  the  same  time  taking  up  the  study 
of  law.  There  is  a  story  told  of  a 
whipping  that  young  Taft  adminis- 
tered about  this  time  to  a  particularly 
obnoxious  newspaper  editor  named 
Rose,  who  had  printed  a  scurrilous 
and  lying  story  about  his  father.  So 
eflfective  was  his  punishment  of  the 
man  whom  the  Chief  of  Police  and  a 
hired  prize-fighter  had  in  turn  failed 
to  silence,  that  Rose  immediately 
stopped  his  paper  and  left  the  city. 
This  is  only  one  instance  thus  early 
displayed,  of  Judge  Taft's  athletic 
prowess  and  his  never-failing  courage, 
— courage  that  years  afterward  kept 
him  rigorously  at  his  post  in  the. tar 
East — and  doubtless  alive  too — when 
his  physician  had  doomed  him  to 
death  as  a  certain  consequence. 

In  1880  young  Taft  was  graduated 
from  the  Cincinnati  Law  School. 
With  his  appointment  the  very  next 
year  as  Assistant  Prosecuting  Attor- 
ney for  Hamilton  County,  Ohio,  began 
his  rapid  rise  and  brilliant  career  in 
public  life.  In  1882  he  resigned  this 
office  to  accept  from  President  Arthur 
an  appointment  as  collector  of  internal 
revenue  for  the  First  district  of  Ohio. 
The  duties  of  this  place  proving  dis- 
tasteful to  him,  he  again  resigned  at 
the  end  of  a  year  and  resumed  the 
practice  of  law. 

In   1885  he   was    made    Assistant 


County  Solicitor,  and  he  became  a 
Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Ohio 
in  1887.  Before  he  had  completed  his 
term  of  office  President  Harrison  ap- 
pointed him  Solicitor-General  of  the 
United  States.  In  1892  he  was 
appointed  judge  of  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  for  the  Seventh  district, 
and  on  the  creation  of  the  Circuit 
Court  of  Appeals  he  was  assigned  to 
that  bench.  From  1896  until  his  ap- 
pointment on  the  Philippine  Commis- 
sion he  was  dean  and  professor  in  the 
law  department  of  the  University  of 
Cincinnati. 

The  tactful  and  able  manner  in 
which  Judge  Taft  discharged  his  deli- 
cate mission  to  the  Vatican  showed 
the  wisdom  of  President  McKinley  in 
appointing  him  president  of  the 
United  States  Commission  to  the  Phil- 
ippines, and  it  helped  largely  to  place 
the  vexed  friar  question  in  a  fair  way 
of  settlement.  On  June  5,  1901,  he 
became  the  first  Civil  Governor  of 
the  Philippines,  which  position  he  will 
resign  to  take  the  War  portfolio  from 
Secretary  Root  next  January. 

In  1886  Governor  Taft  married  the 
daughter  of  ex-United  States  District 
Attorney  John  W.  Herron,  and  he 
has  two  children.  Personally,  he  is  s 
big,  splendid  looking  man,  weighing 
about  250  pounds.  His  genial  and 
kindly  disposition,  and  his  hearty  and 
unaffected  ways  have  won  for ,  him 
hosts  of  friends,  to  whom  he  is  famil- 
iarly known  as  "Bill''  Taft— a  nick- 
name that  has  stuck  to  him  since  he 
was  a  small  boy. 

The  United  States — ^and  Washing- 
ton particularly — eagerly  awaits  the 
coming  of  Judge  Taft.  Great  things 
are  predicted  for  him  in  his  new  and 
responsible  office. 


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Miss  Taft 
374 

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Masterpieces  of  the  Months 

[This  series  will  include  reprodnctioDs  of  the  most  famous  modern  paintings  designed  by  the  artists  to  typify  the 
months  as  designated,  or  to  illustrate  great  events  of  the  months.] 


o 


2. 


w 

3 


375 

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The  Readers  Our  Grandparents  Used 

By  Qifton  Johnson 


THE  first  period  of  American 
school-book  authorship  was 
characterized  by  erratic  ef- 
forts and  random  shots  in 
many  directions.  It  did  not  become 
the  general  custom  to  put  forth  books 
in  nicely  graded  series  until  well 
toward  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  and  in  consequence  many 
isolated  primers,  spellers  and  readers 
were  published  and  used  for  a  brief 
period  within  a  limited  area.  Read- 
ers of  any  sort  for  beginners  were 
very  few  previous  to  1825.  So  far  as 
I  am  aware  the  first  was  The  Franklin 
Family  Primer ^  published  about  1805, 
containing  ''a  new  and  useful  selec- 
tion of  Moral  Lessons  adorned  with 
a  great  variety  of  cuts  calculated  to 
strike  a  lasting  impression  on  the 
Tender  Minds  of  Children."  It  had 
a  frontispiece  portrait  of  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  text  illustrations  of 
Bible  scenes. 

The  next  book  of  this  class  was 
The  Childfs  Instructor  (Philadelphia, 
1808).  In  chapter  I  are  the  alphabet, 
some  columns  of  three  and  four-letter 
words  and  a  number  of  short  sen- 
tences, of  which  the  first  is: 

A  bird  that  can  sing,  and  will  not  sing, 
must  be  made  to  sing. 

Chapter  II  starts  thus : 

1.  Now  George,  you  know  all  the  let- 
ters. Now  you  must  learn  to  spell  and 
read.  A  good  boy  will  sit  and  mind  his 
book. 

2.  Knife,  fork,  spoon,  plate,  dish,  cup, 
376 


bowl,  mug,  jug,  pot,  pan,  tub,  chair,  te-blc, 
bed,  box,  fire,  wood,  shov-cl,  tongs,  bel- 
lows. 

3.  What  is  your  name?  My  name  is 
George.  How  old  are  you?  Four  years 
old.  Do  you  go  to  school?  Yes,  sir. 
Can  you  spell?    Yes.  sir,  a  little. 

4.  Bread,  but-ter,  cheese,  meat,  pud- 
ding, pye,  cake,  beef,  pork,  veal,  sonp,  salt, 
pep-per,  su-gar,  ho-ney,  jel-ly,  car-rot. 

This  alternation  of  spelling  and 
reading  paragraphs  is  soon  aban- 
doned, and  the  spelling-words  are 
confined  to  a  paragraph  at  the  end 
of  each  lesson.  Perhaps  the  most 
noticeable  thing  in  the  lessons  is  the 
constant  reiteration  of  the  idea  that 
it  is  profitable  both  spiritually  and 
materially  to  be  good. 

All  dutiful  children  who  do  as  thejr're  bid. 
Shall  be  lov'd,  and  applauded,  and  never 

be  chid; 
And   their   friends,    and   their   fame,   and 

their  wealth  shall  increase. 
Till  they're  crown'd  with  the  blessings  of 

plenty  and  peace. 
Good  boys  and  girls  go  to  church.  Did 
you  go  to  church?  Billy  went  to  churcli, 
and  so  did  Betsey.  The  church  is  the 
house  of  God;  and  God  loves  little  chil- 
dren when  they  go  to  church. 

Do  you  know  who  makes  it  rain?  I 
will  tell  you:  God  makes  it  rain.  Do  you 
see  that  dark  cloud  rising  in  the  west? 
That  cloud  will  bring  thunder  and  light- 
ning and  rain.  You  need  not  be  afraid: 
God  makes  it  thunder;  and  he  will  not  let 
it  hurt  you  if  you  are  good. 

The  following  is  one  of  the  longer 
lessons  from  the  latter  part  of  the 
book: 


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The  Child's  Picture  Defining  Book 

Two  pages  from  Gallandit's  Reduced  one-half 


HE  THAT  GIVETH  TO  THE  POOR, 
LENDETH  TO  THE  LORD. 

There  was  a  poor  man  who  was  chari- 
table to  excess;  for  he  gave  away  all  that 
he  had  to  relieve  the  necessities  of  others; 
chusing  rather  to  throw  himself  upon 
Providence,  than  to  deny  an  alms  to  any 
one  who  asked  him,  so  long  as  he  had  any 
thing  to  bestow. 

Being  at  length,  by  his  constant  liberali- 
ties, reduced  to  a  very  indigent  condition, 
he  was  forced  to  betake  himself  to  digging 
for  a  livelihood.  Yet  notwithstanding  he 
grained  his  own  bread  by  hard  labour,  he 
ceased  not  to  show  his  wonted  kindnesses 
to  the  poor ;  giving  them  whatever  he  could 
possibly  spare  from  his  own  necessities. 

One  day  as  he  was  digging  in  the  field, 
he  found  several  earthen  pots  of  gold,  sup- 
posed to  be  buried  there  in  the  time  of 
the  wars.  The  good  man  carried  this  huge 
treasure  home  to  his  house,  with  all  imag- 
inable privacy. 

And  having  distributed  the  greatest  part 
of  it  in  charity,  he  was  going  with  the  last 
reserve  to  the  house  of  a  distressed  widow, 
to  whom  he  gave  a  sufficient  sum  to  re- 
lieve her  wants,  being  all  he  had  left: 
When  as  he  was  returning  home  he  found 
a  jewel  in  the  highway,  which,  being  sold, 
yielded  him  ten  thousand  crowns. 


This  was  a  noble  bank  for  new  liberali- 
ties, apd  a  convincing  argument,  that  there 
was  something  more  than  mere  chance 
which  thus  strangely  recruited  his  purse; 
that  it  might  not  lack  something  to  give  to 
the  poor. 

Blest  is  the  man  whose  bowels  move. 
And  melt  with  pity  to  the  poor; 
Whose  soul  with  sympathizing  love, 
Feels   what  his   fellow   saints   endure. 
His  heart  contrives  for  their  relief, 
More  good  than  his  own  hands  can  do: 
He  in  the  time  of  general  grTef, 
Shall  find  the  Lord  hath  bowels  too. 

A  book  very  like  the  one  I  have 
been  describing,  both  in  title  and 
text,  was  the  Child's  Instructor  and 
Moral  Primer,  published  at  Portland, 
Maine,  in  1822.  The  stories  in  it 
have  to  do  mostly  with  such  children 
as  Timothy  Trusty,  who  "is  very  de- 
sirous to  learn;"  Patty  Primp,  whose 
notion  is  that  "to  be  a  lady  one  must 
be  idle,  careless,  proud,  scorn  infe- 
riors, calumniate  the  absent,  read 
novels,  play  at  cards,  and  excel  in 
fine  dress;"  John  Pugg,  whose  "face 


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THE  READERS  OUR  GRANDPARENTS  USED 


A  Melancholy  Scene 

From  Towns  Second  Reader 

and  hands  you  would  think  were  not 
washed  once  a  fortnight;"  and  Tom 
Nummy,  who  "hates  his  book  as  bad 
as  the  rod."  Some  of  the  other  sug- 
gestively named  characters  as  Tim 
Delicate,  Charles  Mindful,  Caroline 
Modesty,  Susy  Pertinence,  Cynthia 
Spindle  and  Jack  Fisty-Cuff.  Ex- 
cept for  Cynthia,  you  know  what  to 
expect  of  each  without  further  de- 
tails. 

To  indicate  how  scarce  elementary 
readers  were  in  the  first  quarter  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  I  quote  from 
the  preface  to  Leavitt*s  Easy  Lessons 
in  Reading  (Keene,  New  Hampshire, 
1823). 

The  compiler  has  been  excited  to  the 
present  undertaking  by  representations 
that  there  is  no  reading  book  to  be  found 
at  the  bookstores,  suitable  for  young  chil- 
dren, to  be  used  intermediately,  between 
the  Spelling-Book  and  the  English  or 
American  Reader.  The  Testament  is  much 
used  for  this  purpose;  and,  on  many  ac- 
counts, it  is  admirably  adapted  for  a  read- 
ing book  in  schools.  But  it  is  respectfully 
submitted  to  the  experience  of  judicious 
teachers  whether  the  peculiar  structure  of 
scripture  language  is  not  calculated  to 
create  a  tone?     I  am  persuaded  it  would 


be  better  to  place  a  book  in  the  hands  of 
learners,  written  in  a  more  familiar  style. 
Such  a  work,  I  flatter  myself,  will  be  found 
in  the  following  pages.  The  selections 
contain  many  .salutary  precepts  and  in- 
structive examples,  for  a  life  of  piety  and 
morality,  of  activity  and  usefulness. 

That  final  sentence  indicates  quite 
well  the  trend  of  all  the  readers  of 
the  period.  What  an  incentive  to 
morality  and  piety  there  must  have 
been  in  such  poems  as  the  following 
effusion  from  The  Fourth  Class  Book, 
(Brooklield,  Massachusetts,   1827). 

LITTLE  CHARLES. 
Well,  Charles  is  highly  pleased  today, 
I  gave  him  leave  to  go  and  play 
Upon  the  green,  with  bat  and  ball; 
And  when  he  heard  his  playmates  call, 
Away  he  sprang  across  the  plain. 
To  join  the  little  merry  train. 
But  here  he  comes — why,  what  means  this: 
T  wonder  what  has  gone  amiss, — 
Why,    Charles,    how    came   you   back    s'» 

soon? 
I  gave  you  leave  to  stay  till  noon. 
I  know  it,  sir,  and  I  intended 
To  play  till  every  game  was  ended ; 
But,  to  say  truth,  I  could  not  bear 
To  hear  those  little  fellows  swear — 
They  cursed  so  bold  and  fearlessly 
That  the  cold  chills  ran  over  me — 
For  I  was  filled  with  awful  dread 


The  good  Samaritan, 

The  Franklin  Primer 


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Hat 


S 


A    TOPSY-TURVY    HAt 
From  Binthy's  Tht  Pictorial  Primer 

That    some    of   them    would   drop    down 

dead — 
And  so  I  turned  and  came  away, 
For,  Pa,  I  was  afraid  to  stay! 

An  attractive  little  book  published 
in  1830  was  The  Clinton  Primer,  It 
was  named  after  De  Witt  Clinton, 
whose  portrait  appeared  on  its  paper 
cover.  Illustrations  were  used  freely 
and  the  body  of  the  book  was  made 
up  of  reading  at  the  top  of  tfie 
page,  spelling  columns  in  the  middle 
and  arithmetic  at  the  bottom.  I  re- 
print some  rather  naive  fragments 
from  the  earlier  lessons,  and  two  of 
the  longer  lessons  complete. 

It  is  a  mule.    I  see  a  mule ;  do  you  ? 

He  has  a  flutej  let  him  play  on  his  flute. 

Ripe  pears  are  good  for  boys  and  girls, 
but  it  is  a  sin  to  eat  too  many  of  them. 
They  often  cause  sickness. 

Who  does  not  love  the  robin?  He  sings 
a  most  lovely  note. 

The  raven  is  not  a  fine  bird  nor  a  very 
good  bird;  he  has  been  known  to  pull  up 
com. 

THE  HORSE  RACE. 

Who  loves  a  horse  race?  Are  not  too 
many  fond  of  it?  Does  it  not  lead  to 
many  evils,  and  to  frequent  ruin?  Never 
go  to  a  horse  race.  Mr.  Mix  had  one 
child,  whom  he  called  Irene;  he  had  also  a 
good  farm,  and  some  money.  He  went  to 
the  races  with  his  child,  dressed  in  black 
crape  for  the  loss  of  her  mother.  Here 
Mr.  Mix  drank  freely,  and  bet  largely,  and 
lost  all  he  was  worth.  At  night  he  went 
home  a  beggar;  took  a  dose  of  brandy, 
and  died  before  morning,  leaving  his  child 
a  pcnnylcss  orphan.  Never  go  to  a  horse 
race. 


THE  COACH  AND  TWO. 
Who  is  she  that  is  growing  up  to  the 
good  fortune  of  riding  in  a  coach  and  two? 
She  is  the  girl  who  rises  with  the  rising 
day; — ^whose    hands    and    face    are    made 
clean; — whose    hair    is    cleared    of    snarly 
locks,   and   neatly    rolled   in   papers;    and 
whose  clothes  are  clean  and  whole,  though 
never  gay.     She  who  loves  her  book,  her 
school,   the   truth,   and  her   parents,   and 
also  the  path  of  peace  and  virtue.     I  now 
see  her  through  the  window  of  the  car- 
riage, and  I  hear  her  say: 
"What  though  I  ride  in  a  coach  and  pair. 
And  in  dress  and  food  like  a  princess  fare ; 
ril  not  be  proud  like  the  haughty  Mooi*, 
Nor  stop  my  ears  at  the  cry  of  the  poor." 

The  next  selection  is  from  Worces- 
ter's A  Second  Book  for  Reading  and 
Spelling  (Boston,  1830).  It  is  a  letter 
written  by  Lucy  Turner,  a  country 
girl,  thirteen  years  old,  to  her  mother, 
who  was  spending  a  month  in  Bos- 
ton at  the  home  of  Lucy's  aunt,  Mrs. 
White.  This  letter  serves  as  a  dread- 
ful example  to  all  children  who,  like 
Lucy,  "never  take  any  pains  to  learn 
to  spell." 

Mi  deer  Mama, 

Wen  yu  cum  bak,  wee  shal  awl  bee 
pleesed.  Evry  wun  seams  dul  becaus  yu 
air  gon. 

Farther  sez  hee  wonts  yu  too  sta  longe 
enuflf  too  hav  ay  gude  vissit ;  butt  ie  no  hee 
wil  bee  gladd  whenn  yure  vissit  iss  ovur. 

Jaims  gose  too  skule  and  ie  thinke  hee 
behaivs  wel.  Saror  stais  att  hom,  and 
wurks  withe  mee.  Wee  awl  injoy  gude 
hclth. 

THE  COACH   AND  TWO. 


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THE  READERS  OUR  GRANDPARENTS  USED 


Doo  rite  mee  ay  lettur,  and  tel  mee 
abowt  Bosten,  and  ant  Wite's  foax,  and 
hou  soone  wee  ma  expekt  yu. 

Yurc  verry  luving  childe 

Lucy  Turner. 
Now,  only  think  how  much  grieved  and 
ashamed  her  mother  must  have  been,  when 
she  found  that  Lucy  had  spelled  only  her 
name  and  one  word  right. 

Here  is  an  illustration  from  The 
Progressive  Reader  or  Juvenile  Moni- 
tor (Concord,  New  Hampshire,  1830). 
We  are  told  that  the  bird  it  depicts 
"sang  from  morning  till  evening  and 
was  very  handsome."  Caroline,  the 
little  girl  to  whom  the  bird  belonged, 
"fed  it  with  seeds  and  cooling  herbs 
and  sugar,  and  refreshed  it  daily  with 
water  from  a  clear  fountain."  But  at 
length  it  died.  "The  little  girl  la- 
mented her  beloved  bird,  and  wept 
sore."  Then  her  mother  bought  an- 
other "handsomer  than  the  former, 
and  as  fair  a  songster." 

"But  Caroline  wept  still  more,"  and 
her  mother,  "amazed,"  asked  the  rea- 
son. Caroline  replied  it  was  because 
she  had  wronged  the  bird  that 
died  by  eating  a  piece  of  sugar  herself 
that  her  mother  had  given  her  for  the 
bird.  The  mother  saw  then  why 
Caroline  had  been  so  distressed.  It 
was  "the  sacred  voice  of  nature  in 
the  heart  of  her  child." 

"Ah !"  said  she,  "what  must  be  the 
feelings  of  an  ungrateful  child  at  the 
grave  of  its  parents." 

The  most  ambitious  poem  in  the 
book  is  the  one  reprinted  in  part 
below : 

STORY  OF  AMERICA  IN  VERSE. 

Columbus  was  a  sailor  brave, 
The  first  that  crossed  th'  Atlantic  wave. 
In  fourteen  hundred  and  ninety-two, 
He  came  far  o'er  the  ocean  blue. 
Where  ne'er  a  ship  had  sailed  before. 


A  Bird 

Tkt  Progressivt  Reader 

And  found  a  wild  and  savage  shore. 
Where  naked  men  in  forests  prowled, 
And    bears    and    panthers    roamed    and 
howled. 

At  length,  when  years  had  passed  away. 
Some  English  came  to  Virgfinia; 
*Twas  sixteen  hundred  seven;  be  sure 
You  let  this  in  your  mind  endure; 
For  'twas  the  first  bold  colony 
Planted  in  North  America; 
The  first  that  laid  the  deep  foundation. 
On  which  has  since  been  built  a  nation. 
Well,  here  they  raised  a  far-famed  town 
On  James*  river,  called  Jamestown. 
They  struggled  hard  'gainst  many  sorrows. 
Sickness  and  want,  and  Indian  arrows; 
But  bold  and  strong  at  length  they  grew. 
And  were  a  brave  and  manly  crew. 

'Twas  eight  years  after  this, — I  mean 
The  year  sixteen  hundred  fifteen, — 
Some  Dutch,  from  Holland,  settled  pat  on 
An  Island  which  they  called  Manhattan, 
And  straight  they  set  themselves  to  work. 
And  built  the  city  of  New  York. 
Now  let  the  laughing  wags  and  jokers 
Say  that  the  Dutch  are  stupid  smokers; 
We  only  tell,  that,  dull  or  witty. 
They  founded  famous  New  York  City; 
The  largest  city  in  the  west. 
For  trade  and  commerce  quite  the  best. 


The  French. 

From  Tht  Pregr*ssiv4  RtatUr 


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A  curious  lesson  found  in  The 
Union  Prifner,  1832,  was  this: 

A  boy  who  was  idle  and  wicked,  saw 
an  old  man  with  poor  clothes  on — ^hc  went 
up  to  him  as  he  was  in  the  grave-yard, 
and  said,  "Father,  you  are  in  a  very  mis- 
erable condition  if  there  is  not  another 
world."  "True,  son,"  replied  the  old 
Christian,  "but  what  is  your  condition  if 
there  is?  I  have  plenty  to  keep  me  warm 
and  dry,  but  I  fear  you  have  not  that  which 
can  keep  your  soul  from  Hell." 

The  compiler 
of  The  Child's 
Guide,  a  popular 
and  in  many 
ways  admirable 
text-book  pub- 
lished at  Spring- 
field, Massachu- 
setts, in  1833, 
urges  that  the 
pupils  should 
read  very  dis- 
tinctly and  slow- 
ly, and  he  says, 
"When  /  used 
to  go  to  school 
I  found  these 
lines  in  my 
book: 


speak 
other 


''lb  pDt  hto  haKd  into  hit  pockal  agmia,  uul  took  out  iho  chait&ul 
ur,  tod  all  the  bojt  looked  ai  lu" 

Frontispiece  of  TAt  Child's  Guidt 


"Learn    to 

slow]    all 

graces  ^"'i 

Will  follow  in  their 

proper  places." 

As  an  aid  to  clear  comprehension 
and  correct  enunciation  the  text  is 
well  peppered  with  words  in  italics  to 
indicate  that  such  words  are  *'em- 
phatical."  Here  is  the  frontispiece. 
No  wonder  "all  the  boys  looked" 
when  they  discovered  their  master 
had  been  carrying  a  prickly  thing  like 
that  in  his  pocket.  It  seems  the 
master  had  happened  along  that 
morning  while  a  group  of  boys  were 


pounding  chestnuts  out  of  some 
green  burrs  they  had  knocked  off  a 
tree,  and  he  heard  them  declaring 
that  the  chestnuts  "ought  to  grow 
right  out  in  the  open  air,  like  apples ; 
and  not  have  such  vile  prickly  skins 
on  them."  He  asked  for  one  of  the 
burrs  and  apparently  carried  it  in  his 
pocket  all  day.  for  the  text  says: 

That  afternoon,  when  it  was  about  time 
to  dismiss  the  school,  the  boys  put  away 
their  books,  and 
the  master  read  a 
few  verses  in  the 
Bible  and  then 
offered  a  prayer, 
in  which  he  asked 
God  to  forgive  all 
the  sins  any  of 
them  had  commit- 
ted that  day,  and 
to  take  care  of 
them  during  the 
night.  After  this 
he  took  his  hand- 
kerchief out  of  his 
pocket,  and  put 
his  hand  into  his 
pocket  again  and 
took  out  the  chest- 
nut burr^  and  all 
the  boys  W^^d  at  it. 

Then  the  mas- 
ter  through 
questions  and 
explanations  sat- 
isfies the  boys 
are     the     only 


that     prickly     burrs 
proper  and  safe  covering   for  chest- 
nuts. 

In  a  lesson  farther  on,  entitled 
"The  Listener,"  are  recounted  the 
tribulations  of  Charlotte  Walden, 
who  "had  a  constant  desire  to  hear 
what  everybody  was  saying,"  and 
who  if  sent  out  of  the  room  when  her 
father  and  mother  did  not  wish  her 
to  hear  their  conversation,  stopped 

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A  Depiction  of  Wickedness 

Printed  Above  the  Ten   Commandments  in   Tki  UnioM 
Primer  f  183  a 

outside  the  door  "with  her  ear  close 
to  the  key-hole." 

One  of  her  curls  once  got  entanfijled  in 
the  key,  and  when  her  father  suddenly 
opened  the  door,  she  fell  forward  into  the 
room,  and  hurt  her  nose  so  that  it  hied. 

When  she  knew  that  her  mother  had 
visitors  in  the  parlor,  or  that  her  father 
had  gentlemen  there  with  him  on  business, 
she  would  quit  her  lessons  or  her  play- 
things, and  come  softly  down  stairs  and 
listen  at  the  door;  or  would  slip  into  the 
garden  and  crouch  down  under  the  open 
zvindow,  that  she  might  hear  what  they 
were  saying. 

Once  when  she  was  stooping,  half 
double,  under  the  parlor  window,  her 
father,  not  knowing  that  she  was  there,  and 
finding  that  a  fly  had  got  into  the  glass  of 
beer  that  he  was  going  to  drink,  went  to 
throw  out  the  beer,  and  emptied  the  tum- 
bler on  Charlotte's  head. 

But  neither  these  nor  other  mis- 
haps reformed  her  until  one  evening 
she  secreted  herself  at  the  top  of  the 
cellar  stairs  to  listen  to  the  servants 
talking  in  the  kitchen.  She  fell 
asleep  and  about  midnight  tumbled 
off  the  stairs  into  a  heap  of  coal. 
Her  screams  a\v*akened  the  house- 
hold, she  was  taken  to  her  room,  and 
sickness  and  repentance  and  never- 
did-so-any-more  followed  as  a-  matter 
of  course. 


This  shows  the  habit  of  the  times  in 
presenting  right  and  wrong  to  the 
youthful  mind.  There  was  always 
the  same  sharp  contrast ;  evil  suffered 
prompt  and  severe  punishment,  and 
good  was  as  promptly  and  decisively 
rewarded,  while  reforms  were  aston- 
ishingly sudden  and  complete.  Ac- 
tual experience  must  have  been  sadly 
disappointing  to  the  child  who  be- 
lieved these  character  myths.  Here 
is  another  typical  reading  book  story 
from  The  Child's  Guide,    It  is  called 

THE  IDLE    SCHOOL  BOY. 

I  will  tell  you  about  the  laziest  boy  you 
ever  heard  of.  He  was  indolent  about 
every  thing.  When  he  had  spelled  a  word, 
he  drawled  out  one  syllabic  after  another, 
as  if  he  were  afraid  the  syllables  would 
quarrel,  if  he  did  not  keep  them  a  great 
ways  apart.  Once,  when  he  was  saying  a 
lesson  in  Geography,  his  Master  asked 
him,  "What  is  said  of  Hartfordr  He 
answered.  "Hartford  is  a  flourishing  comi- 
cal town.'* 

He  meant  it  was  a  ''flourishing,  commer- 
cial town;"  but  he  was  such  a  dunce,  that 
he  never  knew  what  he  was  about. 

Another  day,  when  his  class  were  recit- 
ing a  lesson  from  the  Dictionary,  he  made 
a  mistake,  worse  than  all  the  rest.  The 
word,  A-ceph-a-lous,  was  printed  with 
syllables  divided  as  you  see;  the  defiiTition 
of  the  word  was,  "without  a  head." 


"  Dear  uncle,  I  crj  almost  all  day  lonf .' 
From  7^k*  CkiltTs  GmUU 


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MB.  WOOD  AND  CHARLES  BELL. 

From  Worcester's  S»C0md  Bo0k 

The  idle  boy  had  often  been  laughed  at 
for  being  so  very  slow  in  saying  his  lesson; 
this  time  he  thought  he  would  be  very 
quick  and  smart;  so  he  spelled  the  word  be- 
fore the  Master  had  a  chance  to  put  it  out. 
And  how  do  you  think  he  spelled  it? 

77t6 


italics,  but  what  it  particularly 
prided  itself  on  was  its  pictures. 
These,  it  says,  are  of  **a  superior 
order."  They  consisted  chiefly  cf 
"compound  cuts,"  all  gotten  up  in 
the  same  general  style  as  the  one 
reproduced  herewith.  The  preface 
claims  that  the  compound  cuts  are 
certain  to  "make  a  deep  and  last- 
ing  impression,  aiding  the  memory 
by  storing  it  with  useful  and  accu- 
rate knowledge.  After  the  child 
has  pored  over  them,  the  details 
which  follow  will  be  read  with  anxiety 
and  delight."  The  text  accompany- 
ing the  cut  selected  was  this: 

Not  many  goats  are  raised  in  this  coun- 
try.    In  some  parts  abroad,  and  most  of 

Goat. 

Bhtkimk  atdt  iato 


lailb  and  fbrk  bwidlct. 

A  "Composite  Cut' 

From  Lovell's  7'A#  Voum^  Pm/iTs  Sgcffnd  Book 

•'A-c-e-p-h,  Aceph,"  said  he;  "A  louse 
without  a  head."  The  boys  laughed  at  him 
so  much  about  this,  that  he  was  obliged 
to  leave  school. 

You  can  easily  guess  what  luck  this  idle 
boy  had.  His  father  tried  to  give  him  a 
good  education,  but  he  would  be  a  dunce; 
not  because  he  was  a  fool,  but  because  he 
was  too  lazy  to  give  his  attention  to  any 
thini^.  He  had  a  considerable  fortune  left 
him,  but  he  was  too  lazy  to  take  care  of 
it;  and  now  he  goes  about  the  streets  with 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  begging  his 
bread. 

Lovell's  Young  Pupil's  Second  Book 
(New  Haven,  1836)  followed  the  plan 
of  The  Child's  Guide  in  the  usi»  of 


all  in  the  east  of  the  world,  there  are 
many  goats.  The  he-goats  have  long 
horns.     Young  goats  are  called  kids,  and 


THE  SLEIGH-RIBE. 

From  Worcester's  Second  Book 


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THE  READERS  OUR  GRANDPARENTS  USED 


are  full  of  play,  and  skip  about  in  a 
very  droll  manner.  In  a  wild  state, 
goats  climb  steep  rocks,  and  can  stand 
and  spring  where  few  other  animals 
would  dare  to  go.  The  goat  has  a  very 
strong  and  unpleasant  smell,  but  his 
flesh  is  very  good  to  eat  The  milk  of 
the  goat  is  also  very  nice  to  drink,  and 
is  used  as  a  cure  for  some  diseases. 
The  skin  of  the  kid  is  made  into  soft 
leather  gloves.  Goats'  horns  are  used 
for  handles  of  knives  and  forks.  The 
hair  is  often  made  into  garments. 

The  following  is  a  lesson  which 
combines      natural      history,      moral 
training  and  religion: 

THE  HEN. 

Of  all  feathered  an  i  mals,  there  is  none 
more  useful  than  the  common  hen.  Her 
eggs  supply  us  with  food  during  her  life, 
and  her  flesh  affords  us  del  i  cate  meat  after 
her  death.  What  a  moth  er  ly  care  does 
she  take  of  her  young!  How  closely  and 
ten  der  ly  does  she  watch  over  them,  and 
cover  them  with  her  wings;  and  how 
bravely  does  she  defend  them  from  e  ver  y 
en  e  my,  from  which  she  herself  would  Ay 
away  in  terror,  if  she  had  not  them  to  pro- 
tect! 

While  the  sight  reminds  you  of  the  wis- 
dom and  goodness  of  her  Cre  a  tor,  let  it 


•H 


meL 


This  is  a  par-rot  in  a  cage 
against  thewalL 

That  is  a.ti-ger  in  a  cage 
upon  a  cart 

This  most  be  a  cam-eL 


Goinff  to  tlie  Fields. 

From  American  JuotniU  Primer 


Doubtful  Statements 

From  Mandeville's  Primary 

also  remind  you  of  the  care  which  your 
OTvn  mother  took  of  you,  during  your  help- 
less years,  and  of  the  grat  i  tude  and  duty 
which  you  owe  to  her  for  all  her  kindness. 

Here  is  one  of  the  book's  scientific 
lessons: 

THE   SUN. 

The  sun  is  above  a  mt//»(m  times  larger  than 
the  earth;  and  like  the  earth,  turns  round 
about  itself.    It  was  formerly  supposed  to 
be  an  immense  body  of  fire;  but  this  opinion 
is  no  longer  entertained  by  those  who  ap- 
pear to  be  best  acquainted  with  the  subject 
They  think  it  can  not  be  a  body  of  6re, 
because,  in  that  case  the  nearer  we  ap- 
proached   to    it,    the    greater    degree    of 
warmth  we  should  feel.     Bait  the  contrary 
is  the   fact;    it  is   ascer- 
tained,    that    upon     very 
high  mountains  the  air  is 
much    colder    than    it    is 
below.     Besides,  by  look- 
ing at  the  sun  through  a 
glass   made  for   the  pur- 
pose,   we    perceive    some 
dark  spots  upon  it,  which 
would    not    be    the    case 
were    it    a    body    of   fire. 
We    conclude,    therefore, 
that    the    sun    is    not    a 
body  of  fire. 
What  then  is  the  sun? 
The   sun   is   understood 
to  be  an  immense  ball,  or 
globe,     surrounded     with 
•an     illumined     atmosphere 
which  acting  upon  the  air 
that   en  com  pass  es  the 


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earth  and  other  planets,  in  a  manner  we 
are  un  ac  quaint  ed  with^  produces  light 
and  heat 

Mandeville's  Primary  Reader  (New 
York,  1849)  endeavors  to  teach  words 
and  their  meanings  by  repetition  and 
many  combinations.  The  text  makes 
a  very  queer  patchwork.  Here  is  a 
lesson  where  the  words  the  child  is 
specially  to  learn  are  "par-rot,  ti-ger, 
cam-el."  It  might  have  been  just  as 
well  in  deference  to  the  pictures  not  to 
have  talked  so  much  of  cages  and 
carts. 

The  text  goes  on  to  say: 

Every  tame  parrot  was  once  a  wild  par- 
rot in  the  woods. 

Some  men  have  several  parrots  in  the 
same  cage  against  the  wall,  but  this  man 
has  but  one. 

Every  tiger  is  not  young,  but  some 
tigers  are  old  tigers. 

Camels  are  high,  long,  large  and  strong. 

The  camel  is  not  wild  and  fierce  like  the 
tiger  in  the  cage  on  the  cart,  but  tame  and 
mild. 

Some  parrots  can  talk  like  any  boy  or 
girl. 

No  one  should  put  his  hand  or  his  head 
in  the  cage  of  the  fierce  tiger. 

All  camels  will  carry  men  and  women, 
boys  and  girls,  as  well  as  a  large  horse, 
or  a  strong  mule. 

Here  is  a  specimen  of  what  the 
book  can  do  when  it  undertakes  to 
tell  a  story: 

Two  bojrs  went  out  in-to  the  snow  with  a 
lit-tle  sled.  One  was  na-med  James,  the 
oth-er  was  na-med  Sam-u-el.  James  said 
to  Sam-u-el,  "You  dare  not  go  on  that 
pond    with    your    sled."      Sam-u-cl    said, 


"Yes,  I  dare,  but  it  is  wrong;  be-cause 
fa-ther  said  we  must  not  do  it.  Then 
James  laugh-ed  and  said,  "What  of  that? 
Fa-ther  can-not  see  us,  for  he  is  at  work 
in  the  shop." 

Was  not  Jamies  a  wick-ed  boy?  He  was. 
He  for-got  that  God  saw  him  all  the  time. 

Sam-u-el  beg-ged  him  not  to  take  the 
sled  on  the  pond,  be-cause  the  ice  was  thin. 
But  James  was  ob-stin-ate,  and  went  on 
the  thin  ice  a  great  way.  Then  Sam-u-el 
went  back  to  the  house  and  read  in  his 
Sun-day-school  book. 

After  Sam-u-el  had  read  a  lit-tle  while, 
he  heard  a  noise  out  of  doors.  It  was 
James's  voice.  Sam-u-el  was  fright-en-ed, 
and  ran  out,  and  there  saw  James  in  the 
wa-ter.  The  ice  was  bro-ken,  and  James 
was  up  to  his  neck  in  the  pond.  The  poor 
boy  was  scream-ing  for  some-body  to 
come  and  take  him  out.  Sam-u-el  took  a 
long  pole,  and  held  the  end  of  it,  and 
James  caught  hold  of  the  oth-er  end  and 
crawl -ed  out.  His  moth-er  was  ver-y  sor- 
ry. She  was  a-fraid  James  would  be  sick; 
and  he  was  sick  a  long  time.  But  there 
was  an-oth-er  thing  which  made  her  more 
sor-ry  still.    It  was  his  be-ing  so  wick-ed. 

The  selections  I  have  made  show 
certain  salient  and  picturesque  fea- 
tures of  the  old-time  readers,  but 
leave  many  books  entirely  unmen- 
tioned.  I  have  said  nothing  of  the 
readers  edited  by  Lyman'  Cobb,  who 
was  the  first  to  compile  a  thoroughly 
complete  and  well  graded  series. 
Worcester's  books  soon  followed, 
and  Sanders'  a  little  later,  and  by 
1850,  Town,  McGuffy,  Russell,  Swan 
and  others  were  in  the  field  and  the 
series  idea  was  firmlv  established. 


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Her  Love  and  Its  Memories 


By  Sarah  Endicott  Ober 


EUNICE  SANFORD  sat  on 
the  kitchen  steps,  preparing 
apples  to  dry.  The  house 
and  grape-lattice  were  fes- 
tooned with  long  strings  of  the  fruit, 
yet  steadily  she  peeled,  quartered, 
cored  and  strung,  though  her  whole 
body  ached,  her  hands  were  black- 
ened, withered  and  sore,  and  she 
loathed  the  pungent  ,  odor  of  the 
apples.  For  weeks  she  had  toiled, 
and  must  toil  for  weeks  yet,  for  much 
of  her  slender  income  depended  upon 
the  sale  of  the  fruit,  and  every  bit 
must  be  utilized. 

Not  until  her  day's  stint  was  com- 
pleted did  she  relax  her  efforts,  and 
leaning  her  throbbing  head  against 
the  door-frame,  gazed  out  upon  the 
scene  before  her  with  the  unseeing 
look  of  familiarity. 

Against  the  far  sunset  rose  the 
snowy  peaks  of  the  Presidential 
range,  facetted  with  opalescent  hues. 
An  uneasy  sea  of  lesser  heights 
surged  through  the  middle  distance, 
breaking  into  broad  valleys,  that 
rolled  against  the  isolated  mountain 
on  which  stood  the  Sanford  house. 
Only  the  lofty  peaks  caught  the  radi- 
ance of  the  after-glow;  gray  mists 
and  purple  shades  veiled  the  lower 
heights  and  planes,  but  beneath  all 
sombre  hues  burned  and  pulsated 
vivid  autumnal  colors,  like  fiery  coals 
beneath  blanketing  ashes. 
386 


It  was  typical  of  the  woman's  life. 
Far,  far  in  unattainable  distance  rose 
the  ideals  of  her  youth;  pure,  rose- 
tinted,  lofty,  as  those  distant  heights. 
And  between,  in  ever-lessening  as- 
pirations and  color,  stretched  the 
years,  merging  at  last  into  the 
dead  low  level  of  nK>notonous 
drudgery.  And  beneath  the  sordid 
dullness  burned  and  pulsed  pas- 
sionate forces,  never  developed,  never 
finding  outlet. 

Impassive  was  the  clear-cut  face. 
Not  a  quiver  broke  the  firm,  com- 
pressed mouth;  the  toil-marked,  yet 
beautiful  hands  lay  motionless,  yet 
the  whole  soul  of  the  woman  was 
in  mad  revolt.  She  raged  against 
circumstances,  environment,  fate, 
God  even,  whatever  the  power 
that  had  so  shaped  her  life — 
so  defrauded  it!  If  the  passionate 
rebellion  surging,  seething  within 
her  could  have  found  expression, 
it  seemed  that  the  whole  earth 
might  ring  with  outcries — ^the  very 
heavens  tremble  against  their  vehe- 
mence I 

What  had  life  given  her?  what  did 
it  now  hold?  What  was  there  to  look 
back  upon — forward  to.  Must  her 
aspirations,  her  yearnings  after  no- 
bler things  go  ever  unsatisfied — un- 
fulfilled. Must  all  her  years  pass  in 
this  low  drudgery  for  the  merest  ani- 
mal needs?  and  her  soul  go  hungry 


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— all  her  years?  when  weeks — days 
— hours— even  were  slow  tedious  tor- 
ture? And  she  in  life's  prime — ^with 
long,  dragging  years  yet  before 
her! 

She  beat  her  hands  together  in 
sheer  desperation,  then  lifelong  hab- 
its of  self-repression  stilled  her  again 
into  passive  rigidity.  A  temptation 
came,  that  daily  haunted  her  of  late ; 
a  vision  of  si  still  cold  form ;  fax:e  set 
in  eternal  peace;  hands  freed  forever 
from  toil;  feet  released  from  the 
dreary  treadmill;  soul — but  whither 
had  fled  the  soul?  Resolutely  she 
thrust  the  thought  from  her,  spring- 
ing up,  and  entering  the  house  as  if 
fleeing  from  embodied  evil.  Yet  well 
she  knew  that  the  time  would  come 
when  all  powers  of  resistance  would 
fail,  unless  some  change  came  into 
her  life. 

"No!  No!  Not  that.  No  cow- 
ard's way  out  for  me !"  she  exclaimed 
aloud.  "I  will  bear  life's  burdens  to 
the  end — the  bitter  end!" 

She  hurried  about  the  kitchen, 
striving  to  drown  all  evil  thoughts 
in  her  work.  In  pitiful  contrast  to 
the  rich  scenic  beauty  was  the  tiny 
house,  barren  of  beauty,  devoid  of 
comfort.  Unpainted,  weather-beaten, 
falling  into  decay,  it  ran  into  sheds 
and  bam^  much  more  commodious 
than  itself.  The  whole  structure 
revealed  the  constant  struggle  for  a 
bare  existence;  the  enormous  stores 
of  food  and  fuel  required  for  bea'st 
and  man  during  the  rigors  of  long 
winters. 

The  loneliness  was  beyond  expres- 
sion. Four  miles  from  the  village; 
two  from  a  neighbor;  the  road  de- 
generating into  a  lane  before  reach- 
ing the  house ;  vanishingi  into  sheep- 


tracks  in  the  upland  pastures  beyond. 
The  only  passers,  an  infrequent  berry- 
ing party  in  the  summer;  an  occa- 
sional logging  crew  in  the  winter.  Eu- 
nice's only  outings,  her  fortnightly  at- 
tendance at  the  village  church  during 
the  summer,  or  a  rare  visit  to  the 
store  to  sell  the  produce  of  the  farm. 
For  weary  months  the  road  was  im- 
passable, and  she  was  a  prisoner,  shut 
up  in  this  lonely  place  with  but 
one  companion. 

Here  had  passed  ten  years  of  her 
life.  Into  this  little  unproductive  farm 
had  gone  youth,  strength,  hopes, 
ideals — everything  that  made  life 
worth  Hving.  What  was  the  result? 
A  bare  living;  hands,  soul,  brain, 
dulled,  coarsened,  hardened;  utter 
starvation  of  all  that  was  noble  in  her 
nature! 

Heavy  steps  clumped  through  the 
sheds  from  the  barns,  the  door 
slammed  open,  and  her  only  compan- 
ion came  in.  It  was  Hiram,  the  half- 
wit ;  uncouth,  filthy,  with  burly  frame 
of  manhood,  but  with  not  even  the 
mind  of  a  child.  He  was  a  distant 
relative  of  her  dead  husband,  and  had 
made  his  home  there  for  years.  He 
did  the  farm-work  with  a  machine's 
regularity,  but  beyond  this,  and  the 
gratification  of  his  animal  wants,  his 
mind  was  a  blank. 

He  always  sat  at  the  table  with  the 
family,  after  the  democratic  New- 
England  style,  though  he  reeked  of 
the  barnyard,  and  ate  like  the  animal 
he  was.  Every  unclean  habit,  each 
vulgar  noise  and  action  struck  upon 
the  sensitive  nerves  of  the  woman  with 
all  the  force  of  a  first  observance ;  but 
she  gave  no  sign,  fixing  all  her  atten- 
tion upon  the  vacant  place  opposite, 
as  she  had  once  fixed  her  thoughts 


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HER  LOVE  AND  ITS  MEMORIES 


upon  the  one  who  had  filled  it,  but 
had  left  it  empty  two  years  before. 

When  filled  to  repletion,  Hiram 
settled  back  upon  his  tipped  chair,  to 
pick  his  teeth  with  his  fork,  and 
Eunice  cleared  away  her  untasted 
meal.  He  soon  went  to  his  lair, 
under  the  kitchen  eaves,  and  she  set 
herself  to  her  task,  toiling  far  into  the 
night,  by  the  light  of  a  tallow  candle. 

As  she  worked,  she  counted  over 
the  pitiful  results  of  her  labor!  Tlie 
farm  produced  little,  the  market  was 
small  and  the  returns  meagre! 
Through  the  hot'  summer  she  picked 
berries,  helped  in  the  garden,  to  shear 
the  sheep,  and  even  in  the  hayfield; 
and  with  it  all,  with  wool  carded  and 
spun  into  yarn,  with  eggs,  butter, 
cheese,  and  the  dried  fruit,  figure  as 
closely  as  she  might,  there  was  no 
margin  left  after  the  supply  of  their 
barest  needs. 

In  despair,  she  gave  up  her  cher- 
ished object,  a  stone  for  her  hus- 
band's grave.  After  all  his  life  of 
patient  toil,  of  cheerful  self-denial,  of 
righteous  pure  living,  he  must  rest 
in  an  unmarked  grave;  he  must  be 
forgotten  when  the  generation  that 
had  known  him  was  passed  away. 
And  she  was  powerless.  The  farm 
was  mortgaged  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  his  mother's  long  illness,  and  then 
his  own  helpless  years.  At  its  best, 
it  afforded  only  the  simplest  exist- 
ence. She  could  not  sell  it.  The 
whole  region  abounded  in  abandoned 
farms.  Many  a  house  stood  with  va- 
cant windows  like  blank  eyes  from 
which  all  soul  had  fled.  Many  a 
woman  was  left  like  herself,  desolate 
and  lonely.  The  youth  and  vigor  of 
the  region  had  fled  to  the  cities, 
where    were   broader    opportunities, 


lucrative  employment,  and  better  re- 
turns for  their  labor. 

And  she  wa^s  chained  here.  What 
could  she  do,  with  no  training,  no 
friends,  with  all  her  powers  bluated, 
exhausted — how  could  she  cope  with 
the  busy  progressive  world?  There 
was  nothing  for  her  but  this  dreary 
life. 

Autumn's  sacrificial  fires  smoul- 
dered into  dun  gray  ashes.  The 
earth  lay  stark  beneath  winter's 
icy  shroud.  An  awful  sound 
roared  about  the  lonely  house 
by  day  and  night,  as  though  some 
gigantic  monster  was  roused  to  fury, 
and  filled  the  earth  with  his  bdlow- 
ing.  What  it  was  Eunice  never 
knew,  but  the  mountain  seemed  to 
roar,  dread  precursor  of  fiercest 
storms  and  familiarity  never  robbed 
the  sound  of  supernatural  terror  to 
the  desolate  woman. 

The  cold  grew  intense.  The  snow 
drifted  above  the  eaves,  and  a  dim 
twilight  prevailed.  Only  a  few  rooms 
were  habitable.  Through  the  sheds 
the  bams  could  be  reached,  and  until 
spring  they  were  imprisoned  within 
the  buildings.  Hiram's  repulsive 
face  was  the  only  one  that  Eunice 
would  look  upon;  his  idiotic  words 
the  only  ones  she  would  hear.  But 
she  often  spoke  aloud  to  'break  the 
awful  silence  of  the  little  prison. 

The  stress  of  work  over,  she  knew 
not  how  to  fill  the  tedious  hours. 
Her  few  books  she  knew  by  heart. 
No  newspaper  had  been  taken  for 
years.  The  Scriptures  were  but 
mockery,  and  meaningiess  in  her 
present  state  of  revolt.  Impelled  by 
unrest  she  paced  the  buildings,  brav- 
ing the  rigid  cold.  The  bams  were 
most  comfortable,  warmed  by  stores 


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of  hay,  and  the  breaths  of  many 
cattle.  She  often  paused  before  the 
stanchions,  peering  into  the  patient 
eyes  of  the  ruminating  beasts,  seek- 
ing consolation.  She  went  into  the 
horses'  stalls,  stroking  their  shaggy 
coats,  and  pressing  her  hot  face 
against  their  velvety  ones,  craving 
companionship  from  the  brutes.  And 
son^ething  of  comfort  was  imparted 
to  her  tortured  heart  by  their  mute 
caresses. 

She  often  climbed  to  the  roof  of 
one  of  the  bams,  where  a  sheltered 
scuttle  gave  her  the  only  outlook. 
Here  she  had  arranged  with  the  near- 
est neighbor  to  signal  in  case  assist- 
ance was  needed.  .A  staff  was 
fastened  to  the  roof,  and  an  old  red 
shawl  was  ready  for  the  signal, 
though  no  help  could  reach  her 
through  the  impassable  drifts.  But 
Eunice  often  spent  hours  there,  look- 
ing out  over  the  silent,  dead  expanse 
of  snow,  hungrily  noting  every  curl 
of  smoke  that  betokened  living  sen- 
sate  humanity. 

Into  the  cheerless  "best  room"  she 
went  one  day,  where  bare  floor  and 
walls  glistened  with  frost;  the  horse- 
hair sofa  was  an  iceberg,  and  the 
cane-seat  chairs  as  cold.  Here  were 
the  few  art  treasures  of  the  home: 
crude  chromos,  subscription  prizes 
from  an  agricultural  paper,  tintypes 
and  faded  photographs  framed  in 
splints,  or  cardboard  worked  with 
worsted;  a  wall-basket  made  from  a 
discarded  hoopskirt,  the  wires  tied 
into  figure  eights  painted  black,  and 
adorned  with  gilt  stars.  On  the  nar- 
row mantel  were  a  few  crockery 
vases  and  figures  of  animals.  The 
curtains  were  of  green  paper,  covered 
with  g^y  and  impossible  landscapes. 


On  the  floor  were  rag  mats,  both 
"braided"  and  "hooked-in."  In  thes  j 
the  woman's  starved  artistic  nature 
had  found  vent.  In  beauty  of  design 
blending  of  colors,  and  delicacy  o* 
treatment,  they  were  indeed  excel- 
lent. Yet  Eunice  was  half  ashamed 
of  them  because  they  were  so  differ- 
ent from  any  made  by  her  friends. 

As  her  listless  eyes  fell  upon  them, 
an  idea  flashed  through  her  brain, 
bringing  light  to  her  sombre  eyes, 
and  color  to  her  face. 

"Why  not  make  a  memorial  mat — 
weave  her  husband's  garments  into 
a  tribute  to  his  memory?" 

At  once  shei  hastened  to  put  the 
impulse  into  execution.  From  a 
closet  and  bureau  she  gathered  the 
clothing,  bringing  it  to  the  warm 
sitting  room.  With  calculating  eyes 
she  scanned  them,  noting  every  pos- 
sibility, but  her  rising  hopes  fell. 

"Oh,  wliy  do  men  wear  such  dull 
colors!"  she  cried.  "There  is  not  a 
bit  of  brightness  here.  What  shall  I 
do!  I  will  not  attempt  a  memorial 
mat  unleiss  it  is  a  pretty  one." 

She  pored  over  the  garments,  until 
suddenly  her  face  brightened. 

"Oh,  I  knowl"  she  exclaimed. 
"There  are  all  of  Ben's  baby  clothes. 
Mother  Sanford  kept  them  in  her 
trunk.  She  showed  them  to  me  once, 
thinking  I  might  need  them." 

The  childless  woman  sighed,  but 
wasting  no  time  on  vain  regrets,  she 
ran  up  to  the  dim,  herb-hung  attic. 
From  beneath  the  eaves  she  drew  an 
ancient  trunk.  It  was  nearly  a  cen- 
tury old,  covered  with  calfskin,  the 
hair  outward,  and  studded  with  large 
brass  nails,  which  also  formed  the 
owner's  initials  on  the  lid? 

Eunice  dragged  the  trunk   down 


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into  the  sitting  room,  and  on  a  bunch 
of  keys,  found  the  quaint  one  that 
fitted  the  lock.  But  she  hesitated 
before  turning  it,  looking  over  her 
shoulder  toward  the  adjoining  room, 
fearing  to  hear  the  sharp,  querulous 
tones;  to  see  again  that  fretful  old 
face  with  its  fault-finding  eyes,  that 
had  harassed  and  chilled  her  life  for 
years.  Even  from  the  grave  she  felt 
that  carping  presence. 

"I  shall  lose  my  mind  next,"  she 
said,  shaking  off  the  sinister  impres- 
sion. "These  thmgs  of  Mother  San- 
ford's  must  be  looked  over,  and  when 
Tm  gone  there's  only  strangers  to  do 
it.  Neither  she  nor  Ben  would  want 
that.  I  might  as  well  do  it  now;  it 
will  never  be  any  easier." 

She  opened  the  trunk,  though  it  was 
like  intruding  in  some  sacred  shrine, 
or  baring  the  secrets  of  another's  soul. 
First  were  letters  written  long  be- 
fore envelopes  or  postage  stamps  were 
known;  the  large,  square  sheets 
folded  cunningly,  to  leave  a  place  for 
the  address,  then  sealed  with  wax. 

A  sweet  romance  grew  between  the 
lines  as  she  read,  the  romance  of  her 
whom  Eunice  had  known  only  as  a 
peevish  old  woman.  In  her  girlhood, 
she  had  gone  "down  East,"  as  Maine 
was  called,  to  teach  school  in  a  coast 
village.  To  the  amphibious  people, 
half  farmers,  half  seamen,  she  was  a 
wonder,  with  her  stores  of  knowledge, 
her  graceful  ways,  and  pretty  dresses. 
Judging  from  the  letters,  she  won  all 
hearts,  and  well  she  might,  from  the 
miniature  enclosed  with  them.  Eunice 
gazed  at  it  with  wonder.  Could  that 
beautiful  face,  all  pink  cur\'es  and 
dimples;  those  merry  dark  eyes,  and 
shadowing  curls  ever  have  become 
the  wrinkled  visage  that  she  knew? 


The  letters  spoke  of  rustic  gather- 
ings, quiltings,  com-huskings,  sing- 
ing schools,  and  spelling  matches,  at 
which  the  young  teacher  was  the 
belle.  They  told  of  the  first  time  the 
writer  had  seen  her,  when  just  home 
from  a'  long  voyage,  and  of  the  love 
that  sprang  into  being  at  that  first 
sight.  Full  of  the  proud  importance 
of  a  first  mate's  position,  and 
with  all  the  assurance  of  youth; 
yet  he  was  abashed  and  silent 
before  her. 

Unable  to  reveal  his  love  while 
with  her,  he  now  poured  it  forth  when 
again  at  sea.  Here  were  all  his 
doubts  of  himself:  his  sense  of  un- 
worthiness,  his  fears  of  ever  winning 
her,  his  jealousy  of  more  favored 
lovers.  He  spoke  of  the  agony  of 
parting,  the  awful  sense  of  ever-in- 
creasing distance,  the  yearning  of  his 
whole  being  for  her — ^her  alone. 

The  yellowed  sheets  breathed  of 
the  sea:  calm  skies,  favoring  winds, 
raging  storms,  ceaseless,  buoyant 
motion,  long  night  watches,  sense  of 
depth,  space,  majesty  and  mystery. 
Later,  scenes  in  foreign  lands, 
strange  sights,  impressions  of  ancient 
peoples.  And  every  sight,  sound, 
sense  and  feeling  was  filled  with  her 
— ^the  love  of  her.  High  as  the 
heavens,  uplifting  his  lower  nature; 
deep  as  the  sea,  never  to  be  meas- 
ured ;  as  full  of  resistless  force  as  the 
tempest;  unchangeable  as  the  sua, 
moon  or  stars;  as  foreign  to  his 
former  life  as  the  strange  countries; 
such  was  his  love  for  her. 

"Your  bright  wit  pla3rs  over  our 
dull  natures,  as  the  humming  bird 
darts  over  the  humble  weeds,*^  so 
ran  one  letter.  "It  may  seek  some 
r^ire  flower  to  rest  upon,  but  may  not 


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the  wayside  weed  contain  honey  just 
as  sweet?" 

The  young  mate  confessed  to  the 
theft  of  her  thimble,  and  of  the  com- 
fort the  little  thing  was  to  him,  a  bit 
of  her.  He  searched  foreign  cities 
for  another  to  give  her  in  its  place, 
and  on  the  homeward  voyage  he 
shaped  from  choice  sandal  wood  a 
tiny  heart-shaped  box  to  hold  his 
gift.  Here  ended  the  letters,  but 
both  gift  and  giver  must  have  found 
acceptance,  for  there  in  its  heart- 
shaped  nest  was  the  thimble — an  ex- 
quisite bit  of  filigree  silver,  with  the 
entwined  initials  of  the  lovers  en- 
g^ved  upon  a  shield  on  one  side. 

And  in  the  trunk,  daintily  wrapped 
in  silver  tissue,  and  then  again  in  soft 
linen,  was  the  wedding  dress,  a 
dream  of  peach-bloom  silk,  purchased 
by  the  sailor  lover  in  some  Oriental 
clime.  It  was  made  in  the  style  of 
the  Empire,  low,  square  neck,  short 
puffed  sleeves,  waist  just  under  the 
breast,  and  scant  skirt.  Bands  of 
plush  covered  with  roses  bordered  the 
skirt,  waist,  sleeves  and  neck.  Folded 
with  it  were  filmy  laces,  neckerchief, 
undersleeves,  and  handkerchief.  And 
there  were  the  silk  stockings  with 
open-work  clocks,  and  high-heeled 
slippers,  with  big  buckles  of  brill- 
iants, holding  yet,  after  three-fourths 
of  a  century,  the  imprint  of  tiny, 
arched  feet.  In  another  parcel 
was  the  green  satin  waistcoat  of 
the  bridegroom,  embroidered  with 
pink  roses,  by  the  bride's  own 
hand. 

Hot  tears  filled  Eunice's  eyes ;  her 
throat  contracted  in  pain.  She  knew 
the  sequel  of  this  romance,  its  pathos, 
its  tragedy!  Only  a  few  months  of 
married  life,  and  then  the  young  hus- 


band went  on  another  long  voyage, 
his  last,  as  he  assured  his  wife.  It 
was  his  last.  The  fate  of  ship  and 
men  is  one  of  the  unsolved  mysteries 
of  the  ocean.  The  months  dragged 
into  years  before  the  wife  gave  up 
hope  of  his  return,  and  donned  the 
mourning  garments  that  she  wore 
until  her  death,  and  she  lived  out  the 
allotted  years  of  man. 

Perchance  the  father's  life  went  out 
before  that  of  his  child  began,  none 
could  tell.  There  were  the  baby 
clothes  of  finest  lawn  and  flannel, 
made  with  infinitesimal  stitches;  and 
there  were  larger  garments,  dresses 
of  soft  merinoes,  crimson,  blue,  and 
buff,  and  cloak  of  green  camlet, 
trimmed  with  eider  down.  Eunice 
handled  them  tenderly,  all  her  ma- 
t(»mal  instincts  going  out  to  the  baby 
of  long  ago.  Her  love  for  her  hus- 
band had  been  of  the  maternal  kind ; 
now  it  was  intensified  by  these  relics 
of  his  infancy.  As  for  his  mother — 
a  compassionate  tenderness  sub- 
merged all  former  grievance  and 
rancor. 

"Oh,  Mother— Mother  SanfordI" 
sobbed  Eunice.  "If  I  had  only  been 
more  patient!  If  I  had  only  known! 
Oh,  why  did  you  not  let  me  know — 
let  me  love  you?" 

Reverently  she  laid  the  yellowed 
leaves  on  the  fire,  watching  them 
turn  to  ashes,  and  with  them  was 
burned  away  much  of  the  bitterness 
of  her  heart. 

She  turned  again  to  the  trunk.  In 
progressive  bundles  were  childish 
garments :  square-cut  breeches,  sturdy 
blouses  and  jackets,  mementoes  of 
passing  years,  until  came  the  suit  of 
early  manhood.  Among  them  was  a 
daguerrotype  of  a  beautiful  woman, 


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HER  LOVE  AND  ITS  MEMORIES 


in  whose  dark  eyes  sorrow  was  en- 
throned; whose  waving  hair  was 
gathered  beneath  a  widow's  cap.  Be- 
side her  stood  a  boy,  in  whose  wide 
eyes  was  the  same  grave  earnestness 
that  Eunice  had  seen  years  later.  She 
placed  the  picture  on  the  man- 
tel, beside  that  of  the  young 
teacher,  as  constant  reminders  to 
her. 

No  more  lonely  hours  now.  With 
enthusiasm  she  sketched  her  design 
on  a  piece  of  bocking,  fastened  in  her 
mat-frames.  No  artist  ever  wrought 
out  the  inspiration  of  his  soul  with 
greater  reverence,  or  nobler  motive. 
In  the  centre  she  drew  a  heart-shaped 
shield,  like  that  on  the  old  thimble 
This  was  filled  in  with  pieces  of  the 
dove-colored  dress  worn  by  the 
teacher  on  that  memorable  time  when 
her  lover  first  saw  her.  In  the  shield 
were  the  date  of  the  marriage,  made 
from  the  baby  dresses,  bleached  to 
snowy  whiteness.  Twining  about 
the  figures,  linking  them  together, 
were  narrow  silken  ribbons  of  pink 
and  green,  from  pieces  of  wedding 
dress  and  waistcoat,  that  Mrs.  San- 
ford  had  saved  with  true  New  Eng- 
land thrift.  It  would  have  been 
sacrilege  to  have  marred  the  garments 
themselves. 

Masses  of  small  flowers,  crimson, 
blue  and  buff,  with  trailing  vines  of 
green,  encircled  the  shield,  made 
from  the  diild  garments.  The 
ground-work  of  the  mat  was  of  black 
from  the  mourning  clothes,  for  the 
child  was  named  "Benomi,"  "Son  of 
my  sorrow."  From  the  central 
figures  ran  long  leaf-shaped  scrolls 
of  dull  shades,  from  the  boy's  gar- 
ments; these  enclosed  oval  medal- 
lions on  either  side;   one   containing 


the  name  Benomi  Sanford,  with  dale 
of  birth;  the  other  the  words,  "Tn 
Memoriam,"  and  time  of  death.  All 
were  bordered  and  defined  by  slender 
lines  of  black,  for  the  mother's  grief 
dominated  the  whole  life  of  the 
son. 

Now  came  a  gap  that  Eunice  could 
not  fill — ^the  time  of  early  manhood. 
She  had  the  army  coat  that  he  had 
worn  through  the  Civil  War,  but 
there  was  a  period  of  several  years  of 
which  she  knew  nothing.  He  was 
fifty  when  he  had  courted  her;  a 
reticent,  silent  man,  of  whom  she 
stood  in  awe.  For  days  the  work 
Avas  at  a  standstill,  until  she  remem- 
bered a  small  locked  box  in  her  hus- 
band's closet.  She  brought  it  out 
with  even  greater  reluctance  than 
she  had  his  mother's  trunk,  and  fitted 
to  the  lock  a  key  that  was  in  his  wal- 
let. Only  a  few  things  were  in  die 
box.  A  suit  of  dark  blue,  unworn: 
a  silk  sash  of  pale  blue,  and  wrapped 
in  it  several  letters,  a  photograph, 
and  a  quaint  valentine.  Beneath 
these  was  a  box  containing  a  gold 
ring. 

Eunice  looked  at  the  picture, 
wondering  where  she  had  seen  that 
face.  Groping  back  through  the 
years  to  early  childhood,  she  recalled 
it.  She  was  visiting  the  village  that 
was  now  her  home.  She  was  once 
more  in  the  bare  country  church, 
with  Its  hard,  uncushioned  seat3. 
The  choir  was  led  by  an  old  man, 
thin,  grotesque,  but  with  a  voice  of 
purest  melody.  She  could  hear  again 
the  twang  of  the  tuning  fork,  as  he 
pitched  the  tune ;  she  saw  the  line  of 
singers,  faces  long  since  turned  to 
dust.  Suddenly  a  cleat  voice  broke 
the  expectant  silence  (a  tenor  voice, 


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for  then  that  part  was  taken  by  fe- 
male voices),  in  an  old  fugue  tune: 
"Fly  like  a  youthful—" 
Then  the  alto  joined  in,  and  before 
she  had  well  gotten  to  flying,  mascu- 
line voices  took  up  the  strain,  and  in 
harmonious  pursuit,  all  the  singers 
are  "Flying  like  a  youthful — "  in  and 
out,  up  and  down,  back  and  forth, 
until  finally  the  retreating,  pursuing 
voices  merge  in  a  grand  outburst  of 
melody  in  the  closing  lines: 

**  Fly  like  a  youthful  hart  or  roe 
Over  the  hills  where  the  spices  grow." 

The  silent  house  seems  to  ring 
with  the  music,  dominated,  thrilled, 
led  by  that  clear  young  voice.  In- 
voluntarily Eunice  takes  up  the 
strain,  and  sets  the  echoes  ringing  in 
reality,  while  spirit-voices  seem  to 
join  with  hers.  She  sees  the  rapt 
face  of  the  young  singer,  and  again 
comes  the  thought  as  it  did  to  her 
childish  mind,  "So  must  the  angels 
look  as  they  sing." 

She  beholds  that  face  once  more, 
when  still  a  child.  Now  it  is  glorified 
by  eternal  peace,  coffined  in  a  dark- 
ened room.  The  words  of  solemn 
prayer  sound  through  the  stillness, 
broken  by  stifled  sobbing.  Again 
comes  the  impression  to  the  child's 
heart,  "So  must  the  angels  look  as 
they  sleep."  Tenderly  she  placed  the 
picture  with  the  others,  gazing  often 
at  the  sweet,  pure  face.  She  could 
not  read  those  letters,  the  closed 
pages  of  her  husband's  love-story. 
One  paragraph  only,  the  last,  told  the 
story:  "Dearest,  we  can  wait.  We  are 
young.  But  your  poor  mother  has 
had  so  many  sorrowful  years,  shall 
we  begrudge  her  a:  few  of  our  happy 
ones?    line  waiting  will  not  be  long 


or  tedious,  for  we  love  each  other — 
always — ever — ^we  love  each  other." 

Eunice  laid  the  letters  on  the  fire 
as  reverently  as  if  offering  sacrifices 
to  the  God  she  worshipped.  She 
understood.  That  poor  mother,  with 
life  so  bound  up  in  her  son's,  that 
even  his  happiness  must  not  interfere 
v^Tth  her  jealous  devotion!  Eunice's 
own  married  life  had  been  embittered, 
her  happiness  destroyed,  every  day 
cankered,  yet  no  rancor  was  now  in 
her  heart.  Her  marriage  had  been 
of  convenience  rather  than  of  love, 
but  these  records  of  undying  loves 
aroused  in  her  wistful  yearning.  She 
felt  more  than  ever  defrauded  i>f 
life's  choicest  tieasures.  In  her  heart 
stirred  memories  that  had  for  years 
been  sternly  denied.  She  gave  them 
no  place,  turning  feverishly  to  her 
work  to  drown  them. 

The  suit  that  was  to  have  been  Ben 
Sanford's  wedding  suit,  she  wove 
into  the  side  medallions.  From  the 
white  shirt  and  tie  she  formed  the 
letters.  Twined  about  them  were 
not  the  ribbons  from  her  own  wed- 
ding dress,  but  from  the  sash  that 
had  once  encircled  the  slender  waist 
of  the  girl  he  had  loved.  The  en- 
croaching lines  of  black  did  not  enter 
there,  though  they  defined  the  outer 
edges  of  the  medallions,  and  per- 
vaded the  rest  of  the  memorial. 

Now  memory  comes  to  the  aid  of 
the  weaver  as  she  works  the  borders 
of  the  mat.  The  old  blue  army  coat 
fills  the  intervening  spaces.  As  she 
weaves  it  in,  Eunice  lives  vicariously 
those  years  of  danger  and  suffering, 
knowing  that  it  covered  more  griev- 
ous wounds  than  from  the  bullets, 
from  which  he  had  suffered  until  his 
death. 


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Here  is  the  brown  suit  that  she 
remembers  as  worn  when  first  she 
saw  him.  As  it  goes  into  the  border, 
she  sees  a  great  barn  lighted  by  lan- 
terns and  candles.  Heaps  of  corn 
fill  the  floor  and  bays,  gleaming  like 
gold  in  the  flickering  light  Umber 
shadows  haunt  the  lofty  spaces  above, 
and  the  long  rows  of  empty  stan-. 
chions.  Rollicking  groups  crowd  the 
building,  husking  the  sheathed  ears, 
and  making  the  huge  bam  ring  with 
boisterous  merriment. 

She  sees  herself,  again  a  visitor  at 
her  grandparents, — ^at  this  her  first 
entertainment.  Shy,  conscious  of  her 
first  long  dress  and  coronal  of  braids, 
that  heretofore  had  hung  in  girlish 
freedom.  She  looks  again,  half-re- 
luctant, half-eager,  into  the  untried, 
mysterious  womanhood,  that  she  is 
entering.  A  quivering  sigh  breaks 
from  the  woman's  lips ;  in  pity  for 
that  young  life,  so  soon  to  be  disil- 
lusioned. She  puts  her  hand  to  the 
prim  knot  of  hair.  Yes,  dark  locks 
yet,  though  thinn^  and  frosted  by 
the  defrauding  years. 

She  sees  her  husband,  then  un- 
known to  her,  grave,  middle-aged, 
outside  the  merry  circle,  of  which  she 
is  a  part.  An  incident,  long  forgot- 
ten, comes  to  her  with  new  meaning. 
Buxom  Widow  Jones  husks  out  a  red 
ear  with  a  squeal  of  affected  coyness, 
frisking  clumsily  about  with  coltish 
gambols  that  accorded  but  ill  with 
her  matured  embonpoint.  Suddenly 
darting  at  the  unconscious  Ben,  she 
gave  him  a  vigorous  smack.  As  if 
serpent-stung,  he  sprang  to  his  feet, 
facing  her,  ghastly  white,  his  eyes 
blazing.  She  stood  simpering,  ex- 
pectant, in  her  eyes  a  flame  of  desire. 
That    flame    flared    into    malignant 


fury,  as  Ben  flung  his  half-husked 
ear  away,  and  stalked  from  the  bam. 
The  widow  stared  after  him  in  help- 
less confusion,  but  soon  rallied  her- 
self to  meet  and  parry  the  mde  bad- 
inage that  came  from  every  side. 
Eunice  saw  her  afterwards  in  the 
shadow  of  a  mow,  her  face  hidden  in 
her  apron,  her  broad  shoulders 
shaking  suspiciously. 

"Life's  threads  are  sorely  tangled!" 
sighed  the  weaver,  as  she  recalled 
some  of  Mother  Sanford's  cutting 
criticisms  of  poor  Widow  Jones  and 
her  "running  after  Ben." 

Eunice  knew  now  that  that  night 
was  an  anniversary  of  Ben's  be- 
reavement. She  recalled  when  going 
home  with  a  bevy  of  young  friends, 
their  scurrying  past  the  cemetery 
with  bated  breaths;  the  tall  figure 
coming  from  the  "silent  city,"  and 
their  startled  flight,  screaming,  down 
the  road.  She  intuitively  knew  now 
that  Ben  had  been  keeping  vigil  by 
the  mound  that  covered  all  his  hope 
and  joy.  With  one  dying  kiss 
sacred  on  his  lips,  no  wonder  he  re- 
sented the  desecration  of  that  other! 

Scene  after  scene  unrolled  before 
the  weaver.  From  some,  mthlessly 
shut  away  for  years,  she  shrank,  but 
n>emory  held  them  before  her  with 
inexorable  hand.  Reluctantly  she 
v/as  hurried  on  to  the  time  when  the 
forces  of  womanhood  awoke  within 
her.  She,  too,  had  been  anointed 
with  love's  chrism.  She,  too,  had  re- 
ceived precious  letters,  that,  though 
destroyed  long  ago,  were  burned 
upon  her  heart. 

Remorselessly,  memory  compelled 
her  to  live  again  that  sweet  young  past, 
when  life  was  bliss,  the  world  full  of 
beauty,  the  future  of  promise;  and 


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doubt,  wrong,  care  and  sorrow  all 
unknown.  Again  she  experienced  the 
thrill  of  passion;  again  she  felt  the 
marvel  of  communion  with  a  soul 
that  was  her  very  own. 

She  sought  to  linger  in  this  vision  of 
bliss,  but  memory  hurried  her  on  to 
the  bitter  awakening.  Just  a  slight 
misunderstanding  at  first,  but  aug- 
mented, inflamed  by  hot  young  pride 
and  impatience.  With  the  impetu- 
osity of  youth,  the  tie  between  the 
two  was  severed,  and  pride  prevented 
its  re-uniting.  Out  of  her  life  drifted 
the  only  one  who  could  perfect  it,  and 
she  was  left  to  gather  up  life's 
sundered  threads,  and  weave  anew 
its  web  in  dulled,  nwrred  design. 

No  one  but  her  God  knew  the 
agony,  the  despair  of  the  following 
years ;  the  lingering  death  of  love  and 
hope,  the  weary  routine  of  a  purpose- 
less existence.  Yet  she  gave  no  sign 
to  the  world ;  but  with  cheerful,  even 
gay  face,  met  each  day  and  per- 
formed its  duties.  Misfortune  fol- 
lowed her.  Friends,  home,  property, 
were  taken  from  her.  Then  came  the 
offer  of  Ben  Sanford's  name  and 
home ;  love  was  not  mentioned  be- 
tween them.  Impatiently  she  turned 
from  the  years  of  drudgery  that  fol- 
lowed, to  dwell  again  upon  her  brief 
season  of  love. 

The  stony  barriers  so  long  im- 
prisoning its  memories  were  broken, 
and  strengthened  by  repression — en- 
forced by  loneliness — the  old  passion 
dominated  her  whole  being.  In 
spring-tide  resurrection,  it  sub- 
merged all  restraint,  flooding  her 
nature  with  force  and  power  that 
frightened,  as  well  as  fascinated  her. 

For  days  she  lived  in  that  reincar- 
nated  past,    with    its   vivid    remem- 


brances. Then  suddenly  she  aroused 
from  her  visions  to  realize  that  into 
her  husband's  memorial  she  was 
weaving  her  own  love-life.  All  the 
rectitude  of  her  nature,  the  morality 
of  her  heritage,  the  force  of  her  New 
England  conscience  revolted.  Her 
marriage  vows  were  just  as  binding, 
as  sacred  to  her  now,  as  though  love 
had  welded  them — death  had  not 
broken  them.  She  rallied  every 
power  of  resistance  to  battle  against 
this  mighty  passion  that  so  possessed 
her.  She  strove  to  regain  that  self- 
control,  that  self-repression,  that 
formerly  had  become  a  life-habit. 
For  days  she  paced  her  prison  in  this 
fierce,  though  silent  struggle,  and 
victory  was  hers  at  last.  Once  more 
her  love  was  conquered,  subjugated, 
confined  beneath  stern  self-control, 
that  would  not  allow  even  one  rebel- 
lious thought. 

Eunice  took  up  again  her  inter- 
rupted work,  but  all  interest  was 
gone,  all  enthusiasm  had  vanished. 
Into  the  borders  of  the  mat  she  wove 
the  sober-hued  records  of  her  mar- 
ried life.  Still  the  lines  of  black  de- 
fined them,  until  towards  the  last, 
that  carping  presence  was  removed, 
for  Death  stilled  it  into  peace.  No 
animosity  remained  in  the  heart  of 
the  weaver,  for  she  knew  the  sorrow 
that  had  fretted  those  heart-strings; 
she  acknowledged  the  mother-love 
that  actuated  those  jealous  fault- 
findings. 

As  she  wove  the  last  records  of  her 
husband's  life  into  the  mat,  she  dwelt 
upon  his  sterling  qualities,  his 
patient  long  suffering,  his  fidelity, 
goodness  and  truth.  The  mat  was 
indeed  a  "menK>rial,"  the  revelations 
it     had     gendered     were     gateways 


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HER  LOVE  AND  ITS  MEMORIES 


through  which  she  had  entered  into 
comprehension  of  true  love,  both 
human  and  divine.  Through  the  new 
charity  that  cloaked  her  mother-in- 
law's  failings,  through  her  new 
understanding  of  her  husband's  self- 
sacrifice,  through  her  own  victory 
over  what  she  considered  sin,  Eunice 
was  brought  back  to  God;  to  new, 
strong  faith,  and  patient  submission 
to  His  will.  No  longer  were  His 
words  veiled.  They  became  true 
inspiration  and  comfort.  She  had 
learned  that  not  only  the  "Law  and 
the  Prophets"  were  comprised  in 
"love  to  God  and  man,"  but  all  of 
life's  true  meanings — all  of  eternity's 
fruitions. 

So  engrossed  was  she  in  her  work, 
that  the  days  passed  unheeded;  she 
forgot  to  check  them  off  in  the  Old 
I'armer's  Almanac  on  the  kitchen 
wall.  One  morning  Hiram  burst  in 
upon  her,  mouthing,  gesticulating, 
sputtering,  incoherently.  She  started 
up,  shrinking  back  in  alarm,  and  he 
pressed  after,  glaring  at  her,  shaking 
his  brawny  fist  in  her  face,  and  mak- 
ing uncouth  sounds  that  she  could 
not  interpret. 

Was  the  unconfessed  terror  of 
years  realized?  Had  his  harmless 
idiocy  developed  into  savage  insanity  ? 
Was  she  helpless — shut  in  with  this 
strong  brute?  Trembling,  mute  with 
horror,  she  retreated  before  him, 
from  room  to  room,  shed  after  shed, 
until  through  the  bams  she  fled  like 
a  hunted  deef,  with  Hiratn  lumber- 
ing after  in  fierce  pursuit.  In  and  out 
among  the  startled  cattle,  doubling, 
seeking  some  refuge,  but  so  closely 
pressed  that  many  times  the  hot 
breath  of  her  pursuer  fanned  her 
cheek,  and  all  the  time  the  snarling. 


growling,  sputtering  sounds  of  her 
pursuer  echoed  through  the  great 
buildings,  adding  to  her  terror. 

Finally,  when  nearly  exhatisted, 
Eunice  whisked  into  the  shadow  of 
a  bale  of  hay,  sinking  to  the  floor, 
and  pulling  the  hay  over  her.  Hiram 
raged  through  the  bam,  his  repulsive 
face  convulsed,  his  great  hairy  fists 
beating  the  air,  keeping  up  his  hide- 
ous clamor.  When  he  rushed  to  the 
other  bam  in  his  search,  Eunice  stole 
from  her  hiding  place,  and  climbed 
the  ladders  to  the  signal  place.  Her 
fingers  were  stiffened  with  cold,  and 
nerveless  with  fright,  but  she  man- 
aged at  last  to  open  the  scuttle,  and 
fling  out  the  signal.  For  hours  she 
crouched  there,  not  daring  to  de- 
scend. She  had  no  wraps,  but  with 
her  skirts  wrapped  about  head  and 
shoulders,  she  bore  the  cold  as  best  she 
could.  Again  and  ag^n  she  heard 
Hiram  rage  through  the  bam,  but  he 
did  not  discover  her  hiding  place.  By 
noon,  he  seemed  to  give  up  the  chase, 
and  she  heard  him  lumbering  back 
through  the  sheds  to  the  house. 

When  the  sun  sank,  and  the  bitter 
cold  could  no  longer  be  borne,  Eu- 
nice crept  down,  and  stole  to  the 
house.  Stiff,  nearly  perished  with 
cold  and  hunger,  she  must  seei 
warmth  and  food. 

Hearing  no  sound,  she  noiselessly 
opened  the  kitchen  door,  and  stole 
in.  But  Hiram  heard  her,  and 
sprang  out  from  his  usual  lair,  the 
woodbox  behind  the  stove.  Too  weak 
for  flight,  Eunice  could  only  stand 
there,  her  eyes  big  with  terror.  But 
he  did  not  touch  her,  standing  before 
her,  gesticulating,  and  expressing  the 
words  that  had  before  been  inco- 
herent. 


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"Sunday!  Work  Sunday!"  he 
sputtered.  *'Bad!  Wicked!  Work 
Sundayl" 

With  a  great  revulsion  of  feelino^, 
Eunice  comprehended.  Like  the 
horses,  Hiram  knew  instinctively 
when  the  Sabbath,  the  day  of  rest, 
came.  Never  before  had  he  seen  it 
desecrated.  Eunice  was  shocked  to 
learn  that  she  had  been  working  on 
that  sacred  day,  btft  her  relief  from 
terror  was  so  great,  that  she  burst 
into  a  fit  of  wild  laughter,  that  ended 
in  as  wild  sobbing.  And  Hiram 
gazed  at  her  in  stupid,  open-mouthed 
amazement,  but,  satisfied  with  having 
done  his  duty,  he  retired  to  his  perch 
on  the  wood-box,  while  Eunice,  when 
she  could  control  herself,  prepared  a 
warm  meal  for  them  both.  To  satisfy 
her  own  conscience,  she  kept  the 
next  two  days  in  fasting  and  prayer. 

The  third  day  she  completed  the 
mat,  and  laid  it  on  the  "best  room" 
floor.  As  it  lay  there  in  rich  beauty, 
a  ray  of  sunshine  pierced  the  ice-cov- 
ered window,  and  fell  upon  it  like  a 
benediction. 

"Why!  The  backbone  of  winter  is 
broken!"  cried  Eunice  in  glad  sur- 
prise. "When  ever  has  a  winter 
passed  so  quickly?" 

And  the  "winter  of  her  discontent" 
had  also  passed.  Doubt  and  despair 
had  vanished,  even  as  the  sun  in 
his  returning  solstice  was  loosening 
winter's  icy  fetters.  And  in  the  heart 
of  the  woman  as  in  that  of  the  frozen 
earth,  dormant  forces  stirred  and 
thrilled. 

Meanwhile  that  little  signal  of  dis- 
tress had  caused  consternation  at 
Farmer  Stone's,  it  having  first  been 
seen  by  a  stranger,  who  had  come 
there  several  days  before,  hoping  to 


reach  the  Sanford  house.  After  many 
futile  attempts  to  break  through  the 
impassable  drifts,  he  was  unwillingly 
convinced  that  it  was  impossible  to 
reach  his  goal.  When  the  signal  ap- 
peared he  became  wild  with  anxiety, 
and  gathering  a  force  of  men  and 
teams  from  the  village,  another  at- 
tempt was  made  to  reach  the  lonely 
house.  Two  days  were  spent  in  fruit- 
less effort,  then  the  attempt  was  re- 
luctantly abandoned. 

"I  caJ'late  we'll  have  ter  give  in," 
said  Farmer  Stone.  "  'Taint  noways 
possible  ter  git  through  them  air 
drifts,  an'  we  can't  fly  over  'em.  It 
can't  be  did  noway." 

"But  man !  She  may  be  dying,  or 
in  the  greatest  danger!"  cried  the 
stranger.  "We  must  get  to  her.  Is 
there  no  way?" 

There  was  a  pause,  as  the  men 
looked  dubiously  at  each  other.  Sud- 
denly one  spoke  doubtfully. 

"I've  got  a  pair  of  snow  shoes  ter 
my  house.  P'raps  yer  could  git  thar' 
on  them." 

Joyfiilly  the  stranger  caught  at  the 
suggestion,  and  went  with  the  man 
to  procure  the  shoes.  At  daybreak, 
the  next  morning,  he  was  off,  climb- 
ing the  drifts  as  rapidly  as  his  clumsy 
foot-gear  would  permit. 

"Seems  ter  be  in  er  mighty  tew 
'bout  ther  Widder  Sanford,"  mused 
Farmer  Stone.  "Pears  ter  me  she'll 
keep  er  while  longer  arter  waitin'  all 
these  years." 

Before  the  kitchen  door,  the  drifts 
had  so  shrunken  that  Hiram  dug  away 
quite  a  space.  Here  Eunice  paced, 
breathing  in  the  frosty  air,  full  of 
calm  content  to  be  freed  from  her 
prison.  Suddenly  a  sense  of  move- 
ment drew  her  absent  gaze  to  the 


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HER  LOVE  AND  ITS  MEMORIES 


snow-filled  lane.  To  her  astonish- 
ment, there  was  a  man  making 
slow  progress  towards  the  house. 
Then  she  recollected  her  signal, 
which  still  fluttered  on  the  roof. 
Filled  with  compunction  at  the  anx- 
iety and  trouble  she  had  evidently 
made,  she  watched  the  approaching 
figure. 

As  he  drew  nearer,  something 
in  his  poise  quickened  her  pulses,  and 
sent  her  hand  involuntarily  to  her 
heart.  When  at  last  he  stood  panting 
before  her,  she  recognized  the  face 
that   for  years  had    been    enshrined 


within  her  soul,  though  like  her  own 
it  was  aged  and  altered.  In  the  gray 
eyes  was  the  same  light  kindled  for 
her  so  long  ago.  In  the  voice  that 
finally  broke  the  pregnant  silence 
were  the  same  chords  that  had  made 
her  whole  being  vibrant.  Only  one 
word  he  spoke:  the  name  sacred  to 
him  alone. 

"Una!" 

"Will!    Oh,  Will!" 

All  the  stifled  yearnings  of  years 
were  in  her  cr)-.  Then  his  arms  en- 
folded her,  and  her  sobbings  hushed 
into  peace. 


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From  the  Painting  by  W,  A.  Huuguereau 

Adoration   of    the   Shepherds 


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•    P  G  9  '^^3 


'■'^i' 


New  England  A^gazine 


NEW  Series 


DECEMBER,  1903 


Vol.  XXIX  No.  4 


The  Birth  of  Christ  as  Pictured 
by  Master  Painters 


From  the  Painting  by  Carl  Muller 


The  Nativity 


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CoogU 


A  Trio  of  Famous  Madonnas 


Madonna  di  Tempi,  by  Raphael 


Our  Lady  of  the  Angels,  by  W.  A.  Madonna  and  Child,  by  Carlo 

BOUGUEREAU  DOLCE 


402 

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From  the  Fainting  by  H.  U  of  man 

Bethlehem 


403 

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Immigration 

By  Winfield  S.  Alcott 


OF  primary   importance   in   a 
consideration    of    the    sub- 
ject of    immigration,    in    a 
general  or  in  any   specific 
aspect,  is  a  fairly  accurate  knowledge 
of  its  factors.     In  estimating  the  ef- 
fects upon  a  community  of  the  tide 
of     immigration,      therefore,     it     is 
essential    to    examine    the    elements 
which     compose    it.      A    remarkable 
change  has  occurred  during  the  past 
few  years  in  the  composition  of  the 
current  of  humanity  flowing  steadily 
toward  our  shores.     While  the  races 
inhabiting    the    north    and    west    of 
Europe   formerly   furnished  the  bulk 
of  immigation  into  the  United  States, 
the  peoples  of  southern  and  eastern 
Europe  have  recently  attained  an  ex- 
traordinary ascendency    in    numbers 
and  influence.     According  to  the  re- 
port   of   the    United    States    Bureau 
of  Immigration   for    the  fiscal    year 
ended     June     30,     1902,    the     three 
races  in  order  which  sent  the  largest 
number    to    this    country    were    the 
Italian,  the  Polish  and    the    Hebrew, 
aggregating   forty-eight   per   cent   of 
the     total    immigration    of    648.743. 
The    50,939    immigrants    who    gave 
Massachusetts     as     their     destination 
represented    a   wider    distribution    of 
races,     as     shown    by    the    following 
analysis  based  upon  the  same  report, 
which  compares  the  number  destined 
to  this  State  with  the  total  immigra- 
tion of  the  respective  races  into  the 
United  States: 

404 


Number    Percentage 
P  destined    of  total  im- 

*^*^*-  to  Mass.*    migration 

into  U.  S. 

South  Italian   ii.8'36  T.y 

Irish   7.074  -24.4 

Polish    5.9J^  8.6 

Scandinavian   S'lOi  93 

Hebrew    3-570  6.2 

English    3»^^  21.3 

Portuguese    3.109  58.6 

Finnish    2,548  18.3 

North  Italian  1,510  5  5 

Greek    i.i73  M-S 

All  others   >856 

"50939 

•  The  namber  of  immigrants  from  abroad  destined  to  the 
other  New  England  States  i^as  as  follows  : 

Maine.../ t,272 

New  Hampshire it»44 

Vermont • i»»53 

Rhode  Island 6,41b 

Connecticut 16,835 

26,820 
Massachusetts 5o»939 

Total  for  New  England 77-759 

It  is  impossible  to  present  statistics 
of  immigration  from  the  Dominion  of 
Canada.  No  official  attempt  is  made 
to  enumerate  passengers  in  transit 
across  the  border  from  Canada  into 
the  United  States.  While  some  20,000 
passengers,  not  citizens  of  this  coun- 
try, arrive  annually  at  Boston  by 
steamers  from  ports  of  Nova  Scotia,  a 
large  proportion  are  returning  resi- 
dents or  are  regularly  engaged  a  part 
of  the  year  at  occupations  in  the 
United  States,  so  that  the  figures  have 
no  particular  value  from  the  stand- 
point of  immigration.  Unfortunately 
no  data  are  available  for  accurately 
measuring  the  influx  of  Canadians, 
French  or  English.  ., 

The  forces  set  in  motion  by  the  ac- 
cession of  large  numbers  of  aliens  to 


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IMMIGRATION 


405 


a  community  are  both  reflexive  and 
reciprocal  in  their  action.  The  immi- 
grant has  a  j^ositive  influence  upon  his 
environment,  and  in  turn  is  moulded 
by  it.  Certam  benefits  accrue  to  the 
community  from  the  infusion  of  new 
blood;  and  obversely,  its  growth  may 
be  retarded  or  its  powers  of  assimila- 
tion seriously  taxed  by  the  extrinsic 
burden  imposed. 

Every  race,  again,  should  be  consid- 
ered by  itself  as  well  as  in  its  social 
relations;  and  its  standing  should  be 
determined  by  averaging  the  individ- 
ual and  social  qualities.  In  a  casual 
survey  of  the  scope  and  character  of 
immigration  into  this  State,  it  will  be 
convenient  to  consider  its  bearing 
upon  (i)  the  social  and  political  life, 
(2)  the  intellectual  and  moral  prog- 
ress, and  (3)  the  industrial  welfare  of 
the  Commonwealth.  It  will  be  prac- 
ticable here  to  indicate  only  some  of 
the  more  palpable  effects  produced  by 
the  general  influx  and  to  point  out  a 
few  of  the  prominent  characteristics 
exhibited  by  the  more  numerous 
races.  It  is  the  intention  of  the  writer 
to  present  the  subject  mainly  in  its 
affirmative  aspects. 

The  Italians  are  strongly  in  evi- 
dence numerically;  and  where,  as  in 
Boston,  a  permanent  settlement  has 
given  opportunity  for  the  develop- 
ment of  community  life,  they  have 
disclosed  various  characteristics  which 
augur  well  for  the  affirmative  side  of 
the  immigration  question.  Noting  the 
primacy  in  point  of  numbers  held  by 
the  Italian  race,  it  is  of  interest  to 
observe  the  correlation  existing  be- 
tween this  fact  and  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  Italian  emigration.  The 
fecundity  of  that  race  is  remarkable; 
and  the  economic  pressure  at  home 


caused  by  the  steady  increase  in 
population  is  largely  responsible 
for  the  annual  departure  of  im- 
mense numbers  for  America.  Handi- 
capped at  the  outset  by  ignorance 
of  the  spoken  language,  the  Italian 
immigrant,  usually  of  the  agricultu- 
ral class,  naturally  becomes  a 
common  laborer.  Nevertheless,  the 
Italian  colony  in  Boston,  which  dur- 
ing the  past  season  has  numbered 
about  20,000,  includes  a  considerable 
proportion  of  artists,  musicians  and 
skilled  workmen,  who  form  a  valuable 
and  substantial  addition  to  the  com- 
munity. They  have  also  attained  suc- 
cess in  certain  lines  of  business  enter- 
prise and  their  holdings  of  real  estate 
constantly  increase.  The  Italians, 
aided  by  the  Greeks,  have  performed 
a  distinct  service  in  systematizing  and 
developing  the  retail  fruit  trade ;  they 
have  thereby  widely  extended  and 
in  some  cases  introduced  the  use 
of  a  most  wholesome  article  of  food. 
The  Italians  of  Boston  have  made 
commendable  efforts  to  grapple 
with  some  of  the  reactionary  ele- 
ments in  their  ranks.  The  North 
End  Improvement  Association,  or- 
ganized at  the  instance  of  the  Italian 
Catholic  clergy,  stands  as  the  ex- 
pression of  a  thoroughly  modern 
municipal  spirit.  By  a  united  move- 
ment the  various  religious  organ- 
izations have  recently  made  an  invest- 
ment of  $35,000 — a  large  sum  at  the 
North  End— to  establish  a  centre  of 
social-settlement  work  which  promises 
to  occupy  a  position  of  prominence 
among  agencies  for  the  amelioration 
of  the  lot  of  large  numbers  of  the 
Italian  population.  The  most  press- 
ing needs  of  this  people  relate  to  their 


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IMMIGRATION 


industrial  and  intellectual  emancipa- 
tion ;  for  it  is  an  erroneous  impression 
that  the  Italian  is  not  a  law-abiding 
person.  The  cause  of  this  impression 
may  be  traced  to  the  fact  that  the  com- 
paratively few  offences  committed  by 
the  men  of  this  race  are  of  major  pro- 
portions. Substantially  the  entire 
criminal  record  against  them  relates 
to  assaults  growing  out  of  quarrels 
among  themselves  in  the  Italian 
quarter.  Their  record  of  crimes 
against  property  in  Massachusetts  is 
lower  than  that  of  any  other  nation- 
ality. One  of  the  authors  of  that  most 
suggestive  book,  written  by  residents 
and  associates  of  the  South  End 
House  of  Boston,  entitled  "Ameri- 
cans in  Process/' — ^a  volume  to 
which  the  present  writer  is  much 
indebted, — in  analyzing  the  records 
of  the  police  department  of  Bos- 
ton, shows  conclusively  that  hardly 
one-fifth  of  the  number  of  per- 
sons arrested  during  the  year  1901  in 
the  Italian  district  were  residents.  In 
general  it  may  be  said  that  the  men 
are  temperate  in  the  use  of  strong 
drink  and  that  the  women  are  noted 
for  their  virtue.  It  might  here  be 
further  suggested  that  the  beginning 
of  the  moral  regeneration  of  the 
North  End  of  Boston,  from  the  noto- 
riously degraded  condition  of  the  first 
three  quarters  of  the  last  century,  was 
nearly  coincident  with  the  influx  of 
the  non-English  speaking  foreign  ele- 
ment, and  that  the  practical  com- 
pletion of  the  cleansing  process  dated 
from  the  displacement  of  the  vicious 
population  by  immigrants  largely  of 
the  Italian  race. 

In  view  of  the  established  position 
of  Irish  Americans  in  this  Common- 


wealth, and  the  vital  relations  sus- 
tained by  members  and  descendants 
of  that  race  to  its  social  and  industrial 
life,  reference  to  the  Irish  people  in 
a  chapter  of  this  nature  may  seem 
almost  anomalous.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  comparative  importance  of 
immigration  from  Ireland  into  this 
State,  which  might  be  inferred  from 
the  figures  submitted,  is  apparent 
rather  than  real.  It  represents  as  a 
whole  merely  the  reunion  or  unifica- 
tion of  families;  and  the  excess  of 
females  over  males,  a  distinctive  fea- 
ture of  immigration  characteristic  of 
no  other  race,  attests  the  fact  that  very 
few  Irish,  other  than  those  destined  to 
near  relatives,  now  emigrate  to  Atner- 
ica.  The  new  arrivals  among  the 
men  enter  into  the  life  of  a  popula- 
tion already  well  assimilated;  the 
demand  for  Irish  servant  girls  assures 
such  absorption  of  American  ideals  as 
is  ine\»itable  from  intimate  association 
with  its  domestic  life;  and  intermar- 
riage with  English-speaking  peoples 
gives  an  added  impulse  to  the  absorp- 
tive process.  These  factors,  working 
in  unison,  have  facilitated  assimilation 
in  such  degree  that  the  Irish  Ameri- 
can stands  second  to  no  other  in  social 
and  political  influence;  nor  is  he  sur- 
passed in  point  of  loyalty  to  America 
and  its  institutions.  Perhaps  no  other 
immigrant  race  has  shown  such  devel- 
opment beyond  the  plane  of  life  prev- 
alent in  the  country  whence  it  came. 
Concerning  racial  capability  of  pro- 
gression beyond  conditions  of  life  in 
the  native  country,  a  position  of  pre- 
eminence must  be  accorded  to  the 
Jews  of  Russia  and  the  Polands. 
Their  success  in  the  material  world  is 
proverbial.      Less    well    known    are 


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Jewish  Immigrants  from  Russia 


their  achievements  in  the  development 
of  the  higher  life.  Probably  no  im- 
migrant race  has  a  greater  apprecia- 
tion of  the  advantages  of  education, 
and  reports  from  the  public  schools 
indicate  an  intellectual  superiority  of 
the  Jewish  children  to  those  of  Irish, 
Italian  and  other  races.  While  the 
espionage  of  foreign  governments  has 
restricted  the  Jew  to  an  existence  of 
extremely  limited  scope,  in  America 
his  outlook  upon  life  has  broadened 
in  many  ways;  he  has  earned  notable 
success  in  the  business  world  and  has 
widely  extended  the  range  of  his  pur- 
suits; in  an  atmosphere  of  freedom 
he  has  modified  his  racial  peculiari- 


ties ;  and  the  inherent  capacities  of  the 
race  give  promise  of  uninterrupted 
growth  in  the  country  of  its  adoption. 
The  Poles  and  Greeks  are  in  Mas- 
sachusetts a  comparatively  recent 
accession.  The  men  of  these  races 
have  gravitated  toward  centres  of  the 
textile  industries,  the  Poles  principally 
in  the  western  and  the  Greeks  in  the 
eastern  part  of  the  State.  The  high 
percentage  of  illiteracy  among  the 
former  and  the  difficulty  they  encoun- 
ter in  acquiring  a  knowledge  of  Eng- 
lish have  thus  far  prevented  the 
impression  of  a  notable  influence  upon 
their  environment.  Prior  to  the  great 
strike  in  the  textile  mills  of  Lowell, 


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Types  of  Greek  Boys 


which  employed  nearly  4,000  Greeks, 
that  city  was  surpassed  only  by  New 
York  and  Chicago  in  point  of  Greelc 
population.  The  colony  in  Lowell 
appears  to  have  enjoyed  a  reputation 
for  orderliness  and  sobriety.  Its 
members  have  shown  a  healthful 
interest  in  American  institutions,  and 
their  attendance  ui>on  the  public  even- 
ing schools  manifests  a  commend- 
able ambition  to  become  intelligent 
citizens.  Among  the  Poles  as  well 
as  the  Greeks  the  preponderance  in 
tliis  country  of  the  male  sex  has  been 
a  barrier  to  assimilation. 

Capability  of  assimilation  is  a 
marked  characteristic  of  the  Scandi- 
navians: Swedes,  Norwegians  and 
Danes.  They  possess  thrift,  intelli- 
gence and  other  qualities  essential  to 
good  citizenship.  Perhaps  no  other 
race,  now  emigrating  to  America  in 
considerable  numbers,  is  deemed  more 
desirable.  Closely  akin  to  the  Swedes 
408 


are  the  Swedish  Finns,  who  form  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  arrivals  of 
the  Finnish  race.  Emigration  from 
Finland  has  recently  received  an  im- 
pulse from  the  oppressive  policy  of  the 
Russian  government.  In  Massachu- 
setts the  Fijins  are  largely  engaged 
as  iron  and  steel  workers,  quarrymen, 
and  in  other  occupations  requiring 
muscular  strength  and  endurance. 
Sturdy  of  build  and  conservative  by 
temperament,  they  bid  fair  to  add  a 
most  substantial  element  to  the  com- 
munity. A  tendency  toward  isola- 
tion, due  largely  to  disproportion  of 
numbers  between  the  sexes,  is  likely 
to  disappear  with  a  growing  inclina- 
tion among  the  Finns  to  send  for 
their   families. 

The  Portuguese  disposition  in  favor 
of  emigration  by  families  is  already 
well  developed.  Coming  chiefly  from 
the  Azores  and  Cape  de  Verde  islands, 
their  fondness   for   Massachusetts   is 


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409 


noteworthy;  of  a  total  of  5,309  who 
arrived  in  ihis  country  during  the 
year,  3,109  were  destined  to  this  State. 

The  Portuguese  congregate  in  New 
Bedford  and  Fall  River,  where  they 
seek  employment  in  the  textile  indus- 
tries. In  Boston  the  men  are  largely 
engaged  as  sailors  or  fishermen.  The 
comparatively  large  proportion  of 
females  among  immigrants  of  this 
race  accounts  for  the  fact  that  the 
girls  and  women  are  gradually  gain- 
ing a  foothold  in  domestic  and  mer- 
cantile occupations.  The  men  bear  a 
reputation  for  orderliness  and  the 
women  are  noted  as  superior  house- 
keepers. 

Immigrants  of  the  English  race, 
from  Canada  as  well  as  England, 
form  substantial  additions  to  a  popula- 
tion with  which  they  are  closely  allied 
by  ties  of  race  and  of  civilization. 
Persons  of  French-Canadian  extrac- 
tion are  now  an  important  element  in 
the  population  of  many  towns  and 
cities  of  Massachusetts.  Attracted  by 
opportunities  of  employment  in  the 
textile  and  other  mills,  for  women  and 
children  as  well  as  jnen,  families  have 
emigrated  in  large  numbers  and  have 
adopted  this  country  as  their  home. 
In  many  ways  the  race  has  shown 
progress  toward  an  acceptance  of 
American  standards,  one  indication  of 
which  fact  is  the  decline  in  birth-rate 
among  those  native  to  American  soil. 
Such  a  manifestation  of  Americanism, 
however,  is  not  peculiar  to  the  descend- 
ants of  any  race.  Substantially  all 
have  shown  by  a  declining  birth-rate 
certain  effects  of  the  higher  standard 
of  living  and  of  life  which  distin- 
guishes the  United  States  and  in  par- 
ticular New  England.    In  Massachu- 


setts this  disposition  voluntarily  to 
restrict  the  size  of  family  is  especially 
noticeable  among  the  descendants  of 
the  Irish  and  the  German  immigrants. 
The  numerical  difference  between  im- 
migrant and  native  families  of  the 
same  blood  often  presents  a  sugges- 
tive contrast. 

This  contrast  is  greatly  accentuated 
if  one  observes  the  variation  in  the 
element  of  child  life  of  neighborhoods 
inhabited  largely  by  the  so-called 
native  stock  compared  to  those  peo- 
pled chiefly  by  immigrants.  To  the 
casual  observer  perhaps  no  single 
characteristic,  peculiar  to  the  immi- 
grant population  as  a  whole,  is  more 
notable  than  that  of  its  superior 
fecundity.  President  Hall,  of  Clark 
University,  in  an  address  last  March 
in  Boston  at  the  annual  banquet 
of  the  Sons  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution, drew  particular  attention  to 
this  fact.  He  was  reported  to  have 
expressed  the  theory,  held  by  some 
students,  that  the  decline  in  num- 
bers of  the  native  population  in 
New  England  and  elsewhere  has  been 
due  to  its  physical  degeneration.  He 
suggested  that  mere  scarcity  of  men 
would  have  prevented  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country  without  acces- 
sions to  its  population  from  abroad, 
and  that,  consequently,  the  ingress  of 
foreigners  had  been  the  salvation  of 
the  land.  However  one  may  disagree 
with  Dr.  Hairs  theory  of  de-popula- 
tion, the  importance  of  the  immigrant 
races  as  a  source  of  increasing  popu- 
lation is  evidenced  by  the  following 
statement  in  relation  to  persons  of 
foreign  parentage  in  Massachusetts, 
which  is  based  upon  tables  in  the 
Monthlv    Bulletin    of    the    Statistics 


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IMMIGRATION 


Department  of  the  City  of  Boston 
(Vol.  IV,  Nos.  2  and  3).  According 
to  the  National  census  of  1900  the 
total  population  of  Massachusetts  was 
2,805,346,  of  which  number  1,746,581, 
or  62.26  per  cent,  were  of  foreign 
parentage.  The  percentage  by  nation- 
ality to  the  total  number  of  persons 
having  both  parents  foreign-bom  was 
as  follows: 

Ireland    38.07 

Canada   (French)    1426 

Canada    (English)    11. 18 

England    7.41 

Germany    412 

Sweden    3. 18 

Italy    2.72 

Russia    (Principally   Hebrews)  2.69 

Scotland     2.64 

Poland     1.9s    88.22 

Other    countries    4.98 

Mixed   parentage    6.80 


100.00 
The  city  of  Boston,  with  a  total 
population  in  1900  of  560,892,  had 
404,999  of  its  inhabitants,  or  72.21  per 
cent,  of  foreign  parentage.  The  order 
by  nationality,  referring  to  persons 
having  both  parents  foreign-born, 
was  Irish,  44.27  per  cent;  Canada 
(English),  13.93;  Russia  (principally 
Hebrews),  6.29;  followed  in  order  by 
Germany,  Italy,  England,  Scotland, 
Sweden  and  Poland.  If  to  the  fore- 
going were  added  the  number  of 
persons  whose  grandparents  were  for- 
eign-born, the  result  might  be  even 
more  interesting.  A  comparison  of  the 
above  figures  with  those  relating  to 
immigration  into  the  State  for  the  past 
year  partly  suggests  the  present  di- 
vergence of  immigration  from  former 
standards. 

It  will  be  of  interest  here  to  trace 


the  relative  positions  occupied  by  the 
more  numerous  races  among  the  de- 
pendent classes  of  the  community, 
and  incidentally  to  observe  if  any  ar- 
bitrary relation  exists  between  large 
families  and  poverty.  Statistics  avail- 
able as  to  the  public  and  private 
charity  dispensed  among  the  alien 
population  of  Boston  afford,  on  the 
whole,  an  encouraging  outlook.  An 
examination  of  the  question  reveals 
various  conflicting  factors.  Neverthe- 
less, Dr.  Frederick  A.  Bushee,  in  a 
study  of  "Ethnic  Factors  in  the  Popu- 
lation of  Boston"  (Publications  of 
the  American  Economic  Association, 
1903,  No.  2),  presents  scrnie  general 
conclusions  which  are  distinctly 
authoritative.  It  appears  that  natives 
of  the  British  Isles  furnish  a  larger 
proportionate  share  of  dependents 
than  any  others.  Among  the  remain- 
ing foreign  peoples  in  the  city  the 
Germans  and  Swedfes  represent  the 
smallest  proportion  of  dependents; 
the  Jews  are  not  far  behind,  and  the 
Italians  follow  the  Jews  closely.  No 
specific  relation  between  fecundity 
and  pauperism  is  evident.  It  is  true 
that  natives  of  Ireland — ^who  furnish 
the  largest  proportionate  share  of  de- 
pendents— have  large  families.  It  is 
also  true  that  the  Italians,  and  es- 
pecially the  Jews,  easily  surpass  the 
Irish  in  this  respect,  but  furnish  a 
much  smaller  proportionate  share  of 
the  dependent  classes.  Again,  the 
Swedes  have  larger  families  than  the 
English  or  the  Scotch,  while  their  rep- 
resentation among  public  cliarges  is 
in  inverse  ratio. 

Another  phase  of  the  problem  sug- 
gested by  the  fruitfulness  of  immi- 
grant races  is  indicated  by  the  revela- 


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A  Group  of  Scandinavian  Immigrants 


tions  made  last  winter  by  the  late 
Reverend  H.  L.  Hutchins,  of  Connec- 
ticut, in  regard  to  the  degeneracy  of 
the  native  stock  in  that  State ;  and  by 
the  existence  of  somewhat  similar 
conditions  in  various  remote  towns  of 
Massachusetts  pictured  by  a  writer  in 
the  Atlantic  Monthly  several  years  ago. 
Two  or  three  articles  in  the  Outlook 
also  brought  to  light  the  degraded 
conditions  of  many  communities  of 
natives  in  the  northerly  States  of  New 
England.  While  the  causative  de- 
teriorating influences  have  been  less 
active  in  Massachusetts  than  in  Con- 
necticut, the  evidence  of  their  exist- 
ence and  effects  deserves  considera- 
tion. It  should  in  fairness  be  stated 
at  the  outset  that  conditions  among 
more  or  less  remote  country  districts 
are  hardly  typical.  In  many  cases  it 
will  be  found  that  the  enterprising 
and  substantial  members  of  such  com- 
munities have  migrated  to  more  prom- 
ising fields,  and  that  the  remainder 
represent  the  native  stock  depleted  of 


all  its  saving  elements.  Dr.  Hutchins, 
it  will  be  remembered,  spoke  of  the  de- 
generacy of  this  stock  socially,  intel- 
lectually and  morally,  and  in  support 
of  his  general  conclusions  submitted 
evidence  of  a  nature  which  precluded 
successful  refutation.  He  pointed  out 
the  existence  of  a  surprisingly  com- 
mon indifference,  not  only  to  the  ordi- 
nary moral  standards  pertaining  to 
the  family  relation,  but  to  all  influ- 
ences which  tend  toward  the  higher 
life;  he  showed  that  the  controlling 
factors  of  penuriousness  and  of  poli- 
tics had  so  lowered  the  standards  of 
education  as  occasionally  to  increase 
the  percentage  of  illiteracy ;  and  he  as- 
serted that  the  native  stock  in  general 
was  dying  off  or  becoming  physically 
degenerate.  In  his  opinion,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  advent  of  a  foreign 
population  was  in  many  ways  a  bless- 
ing. It  was  more  thrifty  and  ambi- 
tious; it  displayed  superior  apprecia- 
tion of  the  advantages  of  the  public 
schools;   it  introduced   immeasurably 

411 
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412 


IMMIGRATION 


higher  ideals  of  family  life.  In  sum- 
ming up  his  conclusions  he  stated  his 
conviction  that  "in  the  inevitable  in- 
termingling of  all  these  mixed  bloods*' 
was  perhaps  "the  solution  of  the  prob- 
lem of  the  resurrection  of  the  New 
England  rural  districts." 

If  the  "solution"  by  the  medium  im- 
plied is  to  be  realized,  the  public 
schools  must  take  a  leading  part.  It  is 
unfortunate  that  the  hard  industrial 
conditions  of  life  among  the  immi- 
grant population  make  such  demands 
for  child  labor.  Nevertheless  in  this 
State  the  enforcement  of  a  strict 
compulsory-education  law  minimizes 
the  evil  as  compared  with  its  effects 
in  less  civilized  communities.  The 
dih'gent  efforts  of  the  teachers  in  our 
public  schools,  supplemented  by  those 
of  the  truant  officers,  are  quite  uni- 
formly successful  in  the  enforcement 
of  the  school  law.  In  spite  of  a  too 
general  custom  of  transferring  the 
children  from  school  to  factory  as 
soon  as  the  law  permits,  it  is  probable 
that  they  receive  on  an  average  a 
much  better  equipment  for  life  than 
did  their  parents;  that  many  emerge 
from  the  schools  at  fourteen  years  of 
age  distinctly  superior  in  point  of  in- 
telligence to  the  preceding  generation ; 
and  that  a  large  number  find  o})por- 
tunity  in  night  schools  and  other 
channels  profitably  to  lengthen  their 
school  life.  The  zeal  of  the  children  to 
learn,  the  affection  often  developed 
for  the  school  as  an  institution,  and  a 
ready  reception  of  the  ideals  incul- 
cated have  served  to  make  the  public 
schools  the  chief  factor  in  the  process 
of  assimilation.  But  one  familiar  with 
the  life  and  aspirations  of  our  immi- 
grant population  observes  an  uncon- 


scious assimilative  tendency  at  work 
among  the  old  as  well  as  young  in 
various  expressions  of  Americanism; 
although  it  often  happens  that  the  cus- 
toms adopted  or  copied  are  not  of  the 
highest  character.  The  fact  of  adop- 
tion or  imitation  is  in  itself  significant. 
As  one  of  the  authors  of  "Americans 
in  Process"  well  observes,  the  adapta- 
tion of  men  and  women  to  American 
occupations,  holidays,  and  even  to 
American  saloon  beverages,  stamps 
them  as  "unconscious  idealists" 
reaching  toward  their  conception  of 
Americanism. 

The  crucial  test,  after  all,  to  be  ap- 
plied to  any  solution  of  the  problem  of 
immigration  relates  to  the  ability  of 
the  state  or  community  properly  to 
assimilate  the  foreign  elements  which 
enter  it.  The  history  of  the  North 
End  of  Boston  exemplifies  a  process 
of  assimilation,  still  in  operation, 
which  in  some  ways  affords  an  illus- 
tration typical  of  the  Commonwealth. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  North  End  occupied  a 
position  of  primacy  as  a  social  and 
residential  centre  of  the  city;  prior  to 
the  Revolution  it  was  especially  fa- 
vored by  the  governing  authorities, 
and  became  known  as  the  "court  end" 
of  the  city.  The  first  private  stable  in 
Boston  was  owned  by  a  resident  of 
IMoon  Street,  in  the  heart  of  the  North 
End.  Christ  Church,  erected  in  1723 
on  Salem  Street,  was  suggestive  of  the 
social  prominence  of  the  district. 
The  change  in  the  character  of  the 
North  End  dated  from  the  period  of 
reconstruction  following  the  Revo- 
lution, but  until  the  middle  of  the 
last  century  the  transition  was  a 
very  gradual  one.    The  era  of  immi- 


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East  Indian  Immigrants,  Who  Arrived  at  Boston,  en  Route  to  New  York,  to 
Fulfil  an  Engagement  at  One  of  the  Shore  Resorts 


gration  began  about  1840  and  the 
following  decade  was  signalized  by 
the  advent  of  large  numbers  of 
Irish.  They  have  been  followed  by 
a  succession  of  races  from  abroad 
intent  upon  improving  their  condi- 
tion. Successful,  although  in  vary- 
ing degrees,  the  early  arrivals  have 
moved  on,  and  their  places  have 
been  taken  by  fresh  accessions  of 
the  same  races  or  by  people  of  dif- 
ferent blood.  At  the  present  time 
the  28,000  inhabitants  of  the  North 
End  are  divided  among  some  twen- 
ty-five nationalities,  the  Italians 
and  Jews  very  largely  in  the  ma- 
jority. 


A  concrete  illustration  of  the 
process  of  assimilation  is  inciden- 
tally aflforded  by  the  history  of  the 
social  experiment  performed  by  the 
Ludlow  Associates  connected  with 
the  Ludlow  Manufacturing  Com- 
pany, in  Ludlow,  Massachusetts. 
Some  twenty  years  ago,  when  the 
Company  began  to  take  a  practical 
interest  in  the  higher  development 
of  its  dependents  through  the  pro- 
vison  of  better  homes  and  the 
means  of  mental  and  physical  im- 
provement, the  employees  were  about 
equally  divided  between  Irish  and 
French-Canadian.  To-day  in  place 
of  the  Irish  are  found   a   large   con- 


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414 


IMMIGRATION 


tingent  of  Poles  and  a  mixture 
of  other  races;  while  a  representa- 
tion of  French-Canadians  has  been 
maintained  by  continuous  emigra- 
tion from  Canada.  An  illustrated 
article  in  the  Springfield  (Massa- 
chusetts) Republican  last  spring  sug- 
gested a  well-defined,  though  un- 
conscious, movement  of  the  vari- 
ous races  in  a  natural,  upward 
process  of  assimilation  exempli- 
fied in  this  village.  The  raw 
immigrant  from  the  ship  or  rail- 
road train  was  introduced  to  the 
coarse  work  of  the  mills ;  the  gradual 
acquirement  of  skill  and  the  devel- 
opment of  individuality  was  fol- 
lowed by  promotion;  coincidently, 
through  the  established  agencies  of 
the  Ludlow  Associates,  he  was  ini- 
tiated into  the  mysteries  of  a  mod- 
ern, sanitary  home  and  was  given 
opportunity  to  cultivate  his  physi- 
cal, mental,  moral  and  social  nature; 
and  by  the  education  of  his  chil- 
dren in  the  public  schools  the 
final  step  in  the  production  of  an 
American  citizen  was  complete.  A 
general  movement  of  the  races 
first  on  the  ground  has  been 
steadily  toward  higher  fields  of  ef- 
fort represented  by  mercantile  and 
clerical  employment,  the  skilled 
trades,  and  independent  business  ven- 
tures. 

There   is   no  doubt  that   immigra- 
tion   wisely   regulated,   with   due   re- 


gard to  proper  assimilation,  may  be 
of  vast  benefit.  In  Massachusetts 
and  in  the  United  States  the  materials 
are  at  hand  for  the  evolution  of  a 
nation  which  shall  represent  the 
highest  attainment  of  humanity.  An 
article  by  Mr.  Gustave  Michaud  in 
the  Century  Magazine  for  March, 
1903,  points  to  a  numbefr  of  ethno- 
logical changes  in  the  population  of 
the  country  already  begim,  and  sug- 
gests some  results  inevitably  due 
from  the  infusion  of  the  various 
racial  stocks  now  seeking  these 
shores.  He  mentions  among  other 
modifications  of  the  American  type 
an  increased  regard  for  scientific 
pursuits,  a  definite  accession  of  the 
artistic  temperament,  and  a  rise  in 
the  average  plane  of  existence 
expressed  negatively  by  a  decreased 
amount  of  energy  given  to  the  pur- 
suit of  wealth  and  positively  by 
strengthening  the  ties  of  domestic 
life.  Professor  Franklin  Giddings, 
of  Columbia  University,  in  com- 
menting in  the  Boston  Transcript 
of  March  19,  1903,  upon  Mr. 
Midland's  article,  showed  that  the 
combination  of  elements  now  in 
process  of  assimilation  in  this  coun- 
try resembles  in  some  ways  the 
original  constituents  of  the  English 
race;  and  he  predicted  for  the  new 
American  nation  a  field  of  activity 
unique  and  unparalleled  in  the  his- 
tory  of    mankind. 


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The  Cough  in  Lower  Seven' 

A  Railroad  Sketch 


By  Frank  H.  Spearman 


IT  was  in  the  smoking  room  of 
a  Pullman  car  en  route  to  Los 
Angeles ;  we  were  talking  about 
kickers. 

"It  is  all  right  enough  to  kick," 
observed  a  travelling  man.  "I  can 
kick  when  there's  need  of  it.  Still, 
there's  one  kind  of  kickers  I  don't 
take  to — the  fellows  that  kick  too 
quick.  This  coast  trip  I've  made 
once  a  year  now  for  twelve  years. 
I'd  rather  give  the  house  a  thousand 
dollars  any  time  than  take  it;  but  I 
can't  get  out  of  it,  so  I  have  to 
pound  along  over  this  alkali  about 
once  a  year,  annually." 

"You  mean  —  every  twelve 
months,"  suggested  a  lawyer,  flip- 
ping his  ash. 

"Last  time  when  I  came  through," 
continued  the  travelling  man,  ignor- 
ing the  amendment,  "we  had  a 
kidcer  in  the  car;  a  well-fed,  bull- 
neck  chap,  with  side  whiskers,  and 
bags  and  suit  cases  and  canes  and 
umbrellas  and  golf  clubs,  and  every- 
thing on  earth  a  man  doesn't  need, 
piled  up  all  around  him.  He  had 
section  four  and  I  had  five,  so  I  got 
the  benefit  of  the  foreign  tags  on  his 
luggage. 

"We  pulled  out  of  Chicago  about 
eleven  o'clock  that  night.  I  turned 
in  early,  but  of  course  there  are  al- 


*(Cop7right,  1902,  by  Frank  H.  Speannan.) 


ways  a  lot  of  people  that  never  get 
under  way  till  the  last  minilte,  and 
they  were  going  to  bed  all  around 
me  long  after  the  train  started.  To 
make  it  worse,  after  we  got  past 
Aurora  the  porter  fished  every 
blamed  thing  I  had  in  the  way  of 
baggage  out  from  under  my  berth 
and  crawled  around  on  his  hands 
and  knees  till  he  had  got  me  as  wide 
awake  as  a  grasshopper,  looking  for 
somebody's  hand-bag.  He  said  a 
gen'man  lost  his  bag  and  it  must  be 
som'er's  around  under  there.  After 
he  got  me  all  stirred  up  and  found 
nothing  he  tackled  the  baggage  of 
my  bull-neck  neighbor  across  the 
aisle.  But  that  man  wouldn't  stand 
for  it,  not  a  minute,  and  he  bellowed 
at  the  porter  till  the  boy  was  glad 
enough  to  get  off  with  his  life  and 
let  his  traps  alone. 

"It  was  about  half  past  twelve 
o'clock  then.  I  thought  I  was  going 
to  manage  some  sleep  and  worked, 
hard  for  an  hour  to  get  next  to  it, 
when  all  of  a  sudden  No.  7,  just 
ahead  of  me,  began  coughing. 
Cough  1  I  never  heard  the  beat  of  it 
in  my  life.  It  wasn't  a  loud  cough, 
nor  a  hard  one,  but  just  a  little  mis- 
erable, aggravating  hack  that  ran 
along  in  triplets  as  regular  as  a  fog- 
horn. I  turned  on  one  side  and 
turned  on  the  other;  I  tried  my 
good    car  up  and    my  bad  ear    up; 


415 


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416 


THE   COUGH    IN    LOWER  SEVEN 


stuck  my  head  between  the  pillows ; 
once  I  pulled  the  blanket  over  it. 
It  wasn't  a  bit  of  use;  that  kind  of 
a  cough  would  go  through  a  bur- 
glar-proof vault.  There  wasn't  a 
soul  in  the  car  could  sleep;  I  knew 
that  perfectly  well,  because  some- 
body was  up  and  down  all  night  ex- 
cept that  cougher  in  No.  7.  He 
never  ^ot  up,  nor  let  up,  except 
when  the  train  stopped,  and  when 
we  took  a  fresh  start  he  took  a  fresh 
start,  and  we  chased  along  in  that 
way  clear  to  the  Missouri.  Of 
course,  when  I  saw  the  case  was 
hopeless  I  gave  up  trying  and 
turned  my  attention  to  figuring  up 
my  expense  account  and  planning 
for  an  increase  in  salary  this  year — 
that  I  haven't  got  yet.  So  the  night 
wore  along;  cough,  cough,  cough, 
and  two  or  three  times  I  heard  the 
bull-neck  man  kicking  like  sixty 
about  it  to  the  porter.  About  day- 
light I  did  get  one  little  nap;  just 
enough  to  make  me  cross  for  all 
day. 

"After  breakfast,  when  all  the  car 
was  made  up,  except  No.  7,  and  we 
were  talking  across  sections,  the 
man  with  the  golf  clubs  began  tell- 
ing what  he  thought  of  anybody 
that  would  keep  a  earful  of  passen- 
gers awake  all  night,  coughing.  We 
hadn't  heard  a  sound  from  No.  7 
since  daylight,  and  we  wouldn't 
have  known  whether  there  was  a 
man  or  a  woman  behind  the  cur- 
tains except  for  the  derby  hat  hung 
up  by  the  ventilator. 

"  *It's  an  imposition  on  the  rights 
of  passengers  for  a  man  to  make  a 
public  nuisance  of  himself  in  any 
way,'  asserted  Bull-neck,  talking 
across  at  me  good  and  loud,  so  No.  7 


could  hear  it.  'And  then,'  he  went 
on,  'after  other  folks  have  turned 
out  without  any  sleep  he  takes  his 
good  nap  in  the  morning.  Travel- 
lers that  reserve  space  in  a  private 
car  are  entitled  to  the  rest  and  com- 
fort they  pay  for  without  disturb- 
ance. They  wouldn't  allow  that 
sort  of  a  thing  anywhere  but  in  the 
United  States.' 

*7ust  as  he  wound  ,  up  No.  7 
opened  his  curtains  and  put  his  feet 
down  in  the  aisle.  He  was  a  young 
man,  not  a  day  over  thirty,  and  all 
dressed,  though  his  hair  was  tum- 
bled a  good  deal  and  he  looked  tired. 
He  pushed  the  curtains  back  both 
ways  with  his  hands  and  looked  at 
the  fellow  in  No.  4.  For  a  minute 
he  didn't  say  a  word;  you  may  be 
sure  no  one  else  did.  He  just 
looked  at  Golf-clubs  a  minute  and 
then  he  began  kind  of  low : 

"  'I'm  the  meanest  man  on  earth, 
I  know  that.  Just  a  miserable,  low- 
down  cur.  You  needn't  have  taken 
the  pains  to  talk  so  loud  while  you 
were  telling  me  what  you  thought 
of  me.  It's  not  half  so  bad  as  what 
I  think  of  myself.' 

"It  appeared  a  strain  for  him  to 
talk.  He  had  big  eyes  and  looked 
as  thin  in  the  face  as  a  postage 
stamp.  He  was  so  quiet  you 
couldn't  have  told  he  was  mad  ex- 
cept for  two  warm,  red  spots  in  his 
cheeks.  Bull-neck  picked  up  a 
newspaper  and  began  to  shuffle  it 
around. 

"  *You  want  to  know  what  busi- 
ness a  man's  got  in  a  car  like  this  if 
he  can't  keep  from  disturbing  other 
people,'  No.  7  went  on.  'I'd  just  as 
lief  tell  you  my  business.  I'm  going 
to  California  to  try  to  save  my  life. 


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THE   COUGH    IN    LOWER   SE\'EN 


417 


I  wasn't  able  to  sit  up  all  night  in  a 
chair  car  and  I  bought  this  berth 
and  paid  for  it  with  money  I  earned 
myself.  You  say  they  wouldn't  al- 
low this  anywhere  but  in  the  United 
States.  I  suppose  if  you  were  run- 
ning this  road  you'd  refuse  to  sell 
me  space;  you  wouldn't  give  me  a 
chance,  if  you  could  help,  to  breathe 
California  air,  would  you?  What 
are  you  going  to  California  for?' 
No.  7  seemed  to  be  sizing  up  his 
man  pretty  fast  by  that  time. 
'Going  out  there  to  play  golf  and 
loaf  around  the  big  hotels  and  lie 
about  what  a  score  you  can  make 
on  grass  links,  aren't  you?  You 
probably  never  earned  a  dollar  of 
the  money  you  are  spending,  and 
you  probably  never  were  sick  a  day 
in  your  life,  and  you're  as  big  as 
three  of  me  and  yet  you've  got  the 
meanness  to  jump  all  over  me  so 
the  whole  car  can  hear  it  and  so  you 
know  I  can  hear  it.  Say,  are  you 
naturalized?  I'll  bet  the  last  dollar 
I've  got  on  earth  you're  not  an 
American.  I  know  you  just  as  well 
as  if  I'd  made  you.  Your  kind  own 
the  earth  wherever  they  go,  and 
anybody  that  interferes  with  their 
comfort  is  an  outlaw.  They  say 
corporations  don't  have  any  soul, 
but  the  corporation  that  runs  this 
road  has  got  a  soul  as  big  as  the 
United  States  compared  to  yours. 
I  knew  I  was  keeping  you  awake ;  I 
knew  I  was  keeping  everybody 
awake.  I  couldn't  help  it.  The 
porter,  when  he  helped  me  in  last 
night,  mislaid  one  of  my  valises,  the 
one  that  had  my  medicines  in,  and 
I  couldn't  find  a  thing  to  stop  my 
cough  with.' 

"He  looked  around  all  the  time 


with  his  blue  eyes  as  quick  as  fer- 
rets. 'Why,  there!'  he  exclaimed, 
pointing  to  a  bag  in  the  pile  on 
Bull-neck's  front  seat.  'There's  my 
bag  now.  Look  here,  porter,  what 
do  you  mean?'  he  asked  as  the 
darky  came  up.  'There's  my  bag 
and  it's  been  in  the  next  section  to 
me  all  this  time;  you  claimed  you'd 
hunted  all  through  the  car  for  it.' 

'The  darkey  shuffled  darkey  fash- 
ion. '  'Deed  I  did  hunt.  I  hunted 
right  smart,  but  this  gen'man 
wouldn't  le'  me  look  under  his 
berth.  He  said  the  baggage  in 
there  was  all  his'n  an  tole  me  to 
keep  my  hands  off.' 

"I  never  saw  a  fellow  get  firing 
mad  so  quick  as  7  did.  He  went 
for  Bull-neck  like  a  hornet.  'You 
great  big  bully,  you  loud-mouthed, 
beef-eating  brute,  you;  you're  the 
cause  of  this  whole  trouble  your- 
self—' 

"I  might  as  well  stop  repeating 
what  he  said  right  here,  for  I  never 
heard  one  man  swear  so  at  another 
in  my  life,  and  for  three  years  I 
lived  in  Chicago  on  the  West  Side. 
He  cursed  him  from  Arizona  to 
tide-water  before  I  could  jump  and 
halt  him;  there  were  half  a  dozen 
women  in  the  hind  end  of  the  car. 
I  had  hardly  said  the  word  'women' 
when  he  stopped  short.  He  was  the 
worst  cut  up  you  ever  saw.  Didn't 
say  another  word;  just  put  both 
hands  to  his  face  and  kind  of  let  the 
curtains  fall  together  in  front  of 
him.  But  I  want  to  tell  you,  while 
that  scoring  lasted.  Bull-neck  sat  as 
if  he'd  been  burnt  clean  into  the 
cushion.  I  guess  the  way  things 
stood,  even  then,  the  women 
thought  he  had    a    good    deal  the 


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418 


THE   COUGH    IN    LOWER  SEVEN 


worst  of  it.  There  was  a  sour- 
mouthed  old  maid  in  the  far  end 
that  sputtered  about  the  way  the 
sick  fellow  talked,  but  none  of  the 
rest  said  a  word  about  it. 

"No.  7  didn't  get  into  the  dining 
car  in  time  for  breakfast.  When 
the  excitement  was  over  the  porter 
brought  him  back  a  little  toast  and 
coffee,  but  I  noticed  when  the  tray 
went  out  there  was  just  about  as 
much  on  it  as  when  it  came  in.  He 
didn't  turn  out  of  his  section  till 
along  in  the  afternoon.  I  didn't 
know  why  then,  but  thinking  since 
I  guess  he  felt  mortified  over  the 
way  he  had  talked.  Another  thing, 
too,  he  couldn't  hold  his  head  up 
five  minutes  at  a  time,  and  when  the 
porter  did  get  the  section  made  up 
he  had  to  fix  a  bed  of  pillows  and 
the  fellow  lay  on  that  all  the  after- 
noon looking  out  of  the  window. 

"Most  of  the  time  when  I  hap- 
pened to  glance  over,  his  eyes  were 
closed.  It  didn't  take  a  very  old  travel- 
ler to  see  he  was  a  pretty  sick  man. 
Toward  evening,  when  he  appeared 
to  brace  up  a  little,  I  dropped  down 
in  his  section  and  asked  him  if  he 
was  familiar  with  the  route,  telling 
him  I  had  been  over  it  so  many 
times  I  knew  every  section  stone  to 
Albuquerque.  After  I  had  got  to 
talking  I  could  see  his  heart  was 
pretty  full  and  he  started  in  again 
to  speak  about  the  chap  that  had 
roasted  him  so  in  the  morning. 

"  'It  wouldn't  have  been  so  bad,' 
said  he,  'if  I  could  have  found  my 
medicines  last  night  when  I  ought 
to  've  had  them.  I  haven't  had  any 
strength  since  I  got  out  of  bed  two 
weeks  ago  and  it's  been  pretty  hard 
for  me  keeping  track  of  things  my- 


self; my  head  goes  so  weak.  Then 
my  wife  came  down  last  night  to 
the  train  with  me.  Of  course,  we 
had  to  say  good-bye;  you  know 
how  women  get  broke  up—* 

"'Why  didn't  she  come  with 
you?'  I  asked,  for  I  didn't  mind  let- 
ting him  see  that  in  my  judgment  he 
was  in  a  bad  way. 

"He  looked  at  me  with  something 
as  close  to  tears  as  I  ever  saw  in  a 
man's  eyes.  'There  wasn't  any 
chance.  She  would  have  come,  but 
the  baby — ^is  almost — as  sick  as  I 
am.  She  couldn't  bring  him;  we 
didn't  have  anybody  to  leave  him 
with.  The  doctor  said  I'd  have  to 
come  —  right  oflF.  She  had  to 
choose  and  I  told  her  to  stay  with 
the  kid.  If  she'd  been  along  it 
wouldn't  have  happened;  she's  got 
some  way  of  fixing  the  pillows  for 
me  so  I  don't  cough  hardly  any  at 
night.  I  fussed  with  them  all  night 
myself,  but  I  couldn't  get  a  blamed 
one  fixed  to  do  any  good.  Then,  I 
wouldn't  have  minded  the  coughing 
so  much,  nor  even  keeping  every- 
body awake,  if  I  hadn't  made  such 
a  break  right  before  the  ladies  in 
the  car  when  I  ripped  into  that  fel- 
low this  morning.' 

"'Oh,  that's  all  right,'  I  said. 
'No  one  would  lay  that  up  against 
you.' 

"'No,  it  wasn't  all  right,'  he  in- 
sisted, with  as  much  strength  as  he 
had.  'It  cut  me  to  death  to  have 
the  women  think  for  a  moment  I'd 
have  used  such  language  if  I'd  been 
in  my  right  senses,  or  to  think  I 
don't  know  what  is  due  to  a  woman. 
Fm  not  able  to  say  much  the  way 
I  feel  to-day;  I'd  be  ashamed  to 
speak  to  one,  anyway.     If  you  get 


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THE   COUGH   IN    LOWER   SEVEN 


419 


the  chance  to  drop  a  word  of  apol- 
ogy for  me,  and  will  do  it,  I'll  owe 
you  a  good  deal.' 

"But  I  knew  pretty  well  how  the 
women  felt  about  it  and  where  their 
sympathies  were.  After  supper  one 
of  them  at  the  hind  end  of  the  car — 
she  was  a  stunner,  too;  a  young 
widow  with  two  children,  the  pret- 
tiest boy  and  girl  I  ever  saw — when 
she  came  back  from  the  dining  car 
after  supper  she  saw  No.  7  propped 
up  trying  to  nibble  a  piece  of  choco- 
late. She  had  a  big  orange  in  her 
hand.  As  she  came  along  she  held 
it  out  to  him  and  said  as  sweet  as 
you  ever  heard,  'I  brought  this  back 
for  you  because  I  thought  may  be 
it  would  taste  good  after  such  a 
dusty  day.  I  see  you  don't  eat 
much.' 

"The  man  flushed  up  and  his  eyes 
fell;  he  started  to  rise.  'Sit  still,' 
she  said;  'I  don't  want  to  disturb 
you.' 

"  'It  is  very  kind  of  you  to  think 
of  this  for  me,'  he  replied,  sitting 
down  again.  She  stood  leaning 
against  the  head  of  the  section  seat. 

"  'Have  you  suffered  much  from 
the  heat  to-day  ?'  she  asked. 

"  'Not  so  much  from  the  heat  as 
from  the  remembrance  of  the  unfor- 
tunate break  I  made  this  morning,' 
he  replied. 

"Her  face  showed  the  prettiest 
ignorance  in  the  world.  She  was  a 
stunner,  and  no  mistake.  All  she 
said  was,  'Sha'n't  I  peel  your  orange 
for  you?'  and  she  held  out  her  hand 
for  it.     'I  have  a  fruit  knife  here.' 

"He  tried  to  thank  her  and  she 
slipped  down  and  sitting  opposite 
him  took  the  orange  in  her  hand. 
'It  was  inexcusably  rude  in  me,'  he 


persisted,  with  the  awkwardness  of 
a  well-meaning  man,  'to  forget  this 
morning  that  I  was  not  alone.' 

"  'I  am  sure  that  none  of  us  heard 
more  than  a  very  few  words  of  the 
conversation.' 

"He  looked  at  her  with  a  kind  of 
a  ludicrous  sadness.  'I  am  afraid 
those  were  the  very  few  not  meant 
for  the  public'  But  she  made  light 
of  his  apologies,  quartered  his  orange, 
brought  up  her  little  boy  and  girl  to 
help  out  the  talk,  and  when  she  left 
him  he  looked  and  acted  like  a  differ- 
ent man. 

"Of  course,  that  night  everybody 
was  pretty  tired  and  went  to  bed 
early.  We  didn't  any  of  us  expect 
to  get  very  much  sleep.  No.  7  had 
his  berth  made  up  first  and  after  the 
porter  and  I  had  done  what  we 
could  to  fix  the  pillows,  we  drew 
the  curtains  and  left  him  for  the 
night.  He  coughed  a  little  early  in 
the  evening.  I  suppose  everybody 
braced  for  it — I  know  I  did — ex- 
pecting it  to  last  all  night,  but  by 
Jingo,  after  ten  o'clock  we  never 
heard  another  sound  out  of  that 
berth.  And  would  you  believe  it? 
That  old  beef-eater  in  No.  4  oppo- 
site me,  after  all  that  row  he  made 
about  being  disturbed  the  night  be- 
fore, snored  so  he  kept  everybody 
awake  from  one  end  of  the  car  to 
the  other,  not  excepting  the  porter. 

"In  the  morning,  I  can  tell  you, 
I  got  up  angry.  I  began  expressing 
my  opinion  of  kickers  and  snorers,  up 
and  down  the  car  right  away  and 
out  aloud.  We  straggled  in  to 
breakfast  about  as  we  did  the  morn- 
ing before.  When  I  came  back  I 
thought  I  would  peek  in  on  No.  7 
and  see  whether  there  wasn't  some- 


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THE   COUGH    IN    LOWER   SEVEN 


thing  I  could  bring  while  the  stuff  in 
the  diner  was  hot.  I  asked  the  porter 
if  he  was  awake. 

"  *Yes.  He  got  off  at  Toltec  this 
morning.' 

"'Got  off?' 

"  *He  sat  up  all  night  to  keep 
from  coughing,  so  as  not  to  disturb 
anybody,  and  he  got  off  this  morn- 
ing to  try  and  get  some  sleep.' 

"Well»  it  was  up  to  Bull-neck 
then.  Every  passenger  in  the  car 
had  it  in  for  Bull-neck  that  day  for 
driving  the  sick  man  from  the  train. 

"But  you  can  never  choke  off 
folks  like  that.  When  the  train  got 
started  again  I  was  smoking  a  cigar 
with  some  of  the  men  in  the  front 
end  when  in  he  came  and  began  to 
talk  about  No.  7.  One  of  the  fel- 
lows got  up  right  away  and  left;  I 
stood  it  just  as  long  as  I  could.  'I 
don't  know  who  you're  talking  to,' 
said  I  after  a  while,  *but  for  my  part 
I  don't  want  to  hear  you  talk  and  I 
don't  believe  anybody  else  in  this 
room  does.  You  kicked  the  first 
night  we  were  out  about  that  poor 
fellow  keeping  you  awake  cough- 
ing, until  you  had  him  pretty  near 
stung  to  death;  then  you  had  the 
unmitigated  nerve  yourself  to  keep 
everybody  awake  all  last  night  with 
your  infernal  snoring  and  snoring. 
Now,  I  haven't  had  any  sleep — I 
guess  nobody  in  this  car  has — for 
two  nights — all  on  account  of  you. 
I  want  to  tell  you  right  now,'  I 
shook  my  finger  straight  at  him,  'if 
you  repeat  this  to-night  you'll  have 
an  account  to  square  with  me  in  the 
morning,'  and  I  up  and  left,  and 
every  last  man  filed  after  me.  I 
guess  he  felt  as  if  he  would  like  to 
swallow  his  golf  clubs.     But  all  the 


same  that  fellow  didn't  make  any 
noise  that  night;  he  never  sneezed; 
the  porter  said  he  was  so  scared  he 
sat  up  all  night.  I  slept  like  a  baby, 
you  bet. 

"I  had  struck  up  an  acquaintance 
myself,  on  the  strength  of  all  the 
disturbance,  with  the  pretty  widow 
that  had  the  two  children.  Next 
morning  after  breakfast  I  took 
some  Indian  trinkets  I  had  picked 
up  back  to  her  section  to  the  little 
boy  and  we  got  to  talking  about 
Bull-neck.  'I  got  the  first  good 
night's  sleep  I've  had  since  we 
started,'  said  I.  Then  I  told  her, 
modestly,  about  the  little  talk  in  the 
smoking  room  the  night  before  and 
how  I'd  scared  the  globe-trotter 
into  keeping  quiet  so  the  rest  of  us 
could  have  at  least  one  night's 
sleep.  She  was  so  demure  and  had 
so  modest  a  way  of  keeping  her 
eyes  down,  it  was  pretty  hard  to 
tell  just  what  kind  of  an  impression 
the  story  was  making  on  her.  'I 
don't  think,'  I  went  on,  'he  ever 
peeped  last  night.  I  didn't  hear 
him  make  a  sound,  did  you?' 

"  *N— no.' 

"  *I  hope  you  rested  well  your- 
self,' I  went  on,  sort  of  congratulat- 
ing myself. 

" 'Well— pretty  well.' 

"The  old  sour-faced  girl  in  the 
section  right  behind  her  was  listen- 
ing so  nothing  should  get  away,  and 
just  at  that  point  she  chipped  in.  T 
don't  believe,'  says  she,  kind  of 
pointed  like,  'a  soul  in  this  end  of 
the  car  slept  a  wink  last  night. 
There  was  the  worst  snoring  all 
night  I  ever  heard  in  my  life,  and 
I've  spent  fifteen  different  summers 
at  Chautauqua  assemblies.' 


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PHILIP    FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S    FIRST    POET 


'12! 


"'Who  was  snoring  last  night?'  I  back    at    me    straight    as    an    ar- 

blustered,     rather     sharp,     for     I  row. 

thought    she    was    talking  just  to         "  'The  porter/  she  snapped,  'said 

hear    herself   talk.     But    she    came  it  was  you  !* " 


Philip  Freneau 

America  s  First  Poet 

By  Annie  Russell  Marble, 


AMONG  casual  readers  the 
name  of  Philip  Freneau  has 
-  a  more  or  less  familiar 
sound, — more  in  comparison 
with  other  writers  of  his  time,  less  in 
relation  to  any  detailed  knowledge  of 
his  life  and  work.  The  recent  publi- 
cation of  a  first  volume  of  his  selected 
poems,  edited  by  Professor  Pattee, 
and  a  complete  bibliography  of  his 
writings,  by  Mr.  Paltsits,  indicate  the 
recognition  which  seems  about  to  be 
given,  tardily  but  in  full  measure,  to 
his  work  both  as  "Laureate  of  the 
Revolution"  and  also  as  the  first  true 
American  poet. 

His  life  was  romantic  and  signifi- 
cant. Living  until  1832  he  was  closely 
associated  with  many  of  the  vital 
events  and  renowned  statesmen  of  both 
the  Revolutionary  and  National  pe- 
riods. While  the  major  part  of  his 
verse  echoed  the  struggle  for  free- 
dom and  exultation  over  political  foes, 
yet  there  were  evidences  of  the  poet 
that  preceded  and  followed  the  war. 

In  Freneau's  earlier  lyrics  and  na- 
ture-odes Mr.  Stedman  has  pro- 
claimed there  existed  "the  first  essen- 
tial poetic  spirit"  in  national  letters. 
Many  of  these  are  included  in  the 
critic's  recent  Anthology  of  American 
Verse.     In  the  Introduction  to  that 


volume  he  has  paid  yet  further  tribute 
to  Freneau, — judging  his  poetry  by 
its  best  forms, — "a  true  poet,  one  of 
nature's  lyrists,  who  had  the  tempera- 
ment of  a  Landor  and  was  much  what 
the  Warwick  classicist  might  have 
been  if  bred,  afar  from  Oxford,  to 
the  life  of  a  pioneer  and  revolution- 
ist, spending  his  vital  surplusage  in 
action,  bellicose  journalism  and  new- 
world  verse." 

A  study  of  Freneau's  inheritance 
and  early  life  enables  one  to  trace  the 
dual  qualities  of  poet  and  warrior. 
A  sensitive,  romantic  fibre  mingled 
with  the  sturdy  Huguenot  ancestry, 
thrifty  and  home-loving  wherever  fate 
and  Louis  XIV  might  impel  them. 
Andre  Fresneau,  drifting  to  Boston 
in  1705,  spent  a  brief  time  in  mining 
in  Connecticut,  then  came  to  New 
York  and  held  a  poistion  with  the 
Royal  West  India  Company.  Here 
he  was  associated  with  other  Hugue- 
not leaders,  clustered  in  their  homes 
about  Pine  Street  and  the  old  church 
of  St.  Esprit.  In  1710  he  married 
the  granddaughter  of  John  Morin 
Scott,  thus  weaving  other  threads  of 
noble  inheritance  for  his  grandchil- 
dren. Andre  died  in  1725  and  his  sec- 
ond son,  Pierre,  was  the  father  of  the 
American  poet. 


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PHILIP   FRENEAU:   AMERICA'S   FIRST   POET 


Philip  Freneau  was  bom  on  Frank- 
fort Street,  January  2,  1752.  The 
satne  year  his  father  bought  a  thou- 
sand acres  of  land  in  Monmouth 
County,  New  Jersey,  and  built  there 
a  large  mansion,  with  wide  halls  and 
projecting  wings,  to  which  he  gave 
the  name  of  Mont  Pleasant,  in  mem- 
ory of  the  grand  estate  once  owned 
by  the  family  in  France.  When 
Philip  was  two  years  old  the  home 
was  transferred  to  this  picturestiue 
New  Jersey  farm.  Another  account 
substitutes  ten  years  for  two  and  de- 
clares that  Philip  was  left  in  New 
York  at  school  when  the  family  went 
away.  In  either  case,  he  gained  the 
first  poetic  impulse  of  his  boyhood 
amid  the  hills  and  rivulets  which  he 
portrayed  in  both  early  and  later 
stanzas.  Agnes  Watson  Freneau 
was  a  typical  poet's  mother.  She 
encouraged  all  the  dreamy  love  for 
nature  and  books  which  Philip 
showed.  She  was  a  woman  of  great 
beauty  of  face  and  mind.  Her  por- 
trait, as  a  girl  of  sixteen,  was  long 
a  treasured  heirloom,  rendered  doubly 
romantic  by  the  sabre  thrust 
through  the  heart,  the  work  of  vandal 
British  soldiers  during  the  later  Rev- 
olutionary period.  Surviving  her 
husband  by  half  a  century,  she 
married  Major  James  Kearny,  and,  to 
the  end  of  her  ninety  years,  was  a 
stimulating  companion. 

After  a  sti  aggie  with  the  classics 
at  the  Latin  school  at  Penolop'Ti  and 
under  the  tutorship  of  Rev.  William 
Tennent,  Philip  Freneau  entered 
Nassau  Hall  at  Princeton.  Theie 
is  a  tradition  that  his  room-mate  was 
James  Madison, — at  least,  the  latter 
became   much   enamored   with    Fre- 


neau's  sister,  Mary,  when  he  visited 
at  the  Mont  Pleasant  home.  The 
brother,  Pierre,  whose  name  soon 
suffered  sacrifice  to  the  rugged  Eng- 
lish Peter,  had  more  of  the  ancestral 
thrift  and  assiduity  than  Philip  ever 
disclosed.  He  was  identified  with 
the  political  and  social  life  of  South 
Carolina  after  the  war  and  was  an 
intimate  adviser  of  Jefferson  and 
other  statesmen.  At  college  Philip 
was  classmate  of  Madison,  Aaron 
Burr,  Aaron  Ogden  and  Hugh  Henry 
Brackenridge.  While  a"  mere  boy  he 
aspired,  like  many  an  embryo  poet, 
to  write  epics  and  heroics.  Unfortu- 
nately, many  of  these  early  bombastic 
efforts  were  preserved  and  included 
with  his  meritorious,  mature  poetry. 
Prominence  is  given,  for  instance,  to 
'The  Poetical  History  of  the  Prophet 
Jonah,"  written  when  Freneau  was 
only  fourteen.  Two  years  later  he 
essayed  *'The  Pyramids  of  Egypt," 
a  dramatic  dialogue  between  "a  Trav- 
eller, a  Genius  and  Time."  After 
these  themes  of  "sublime  audacity," 
he  wrote,  in  collaboration  with  BracW- 
enridge,  the  poem  which  opens  his 
volume  of  Revolutionary  verse,  "The 
Rising  Glory  of  America."  This 
oration  in  metre  furnished  the  "Com- 
mencement parts"  assigned  to  these 
young  collegians  at  their  graduation 
in  1 771.  While  browsing  at  the 
Library  of  the  Historical  Society  of 
Pennsylvania,  that  rare  treasure- 
house  of  Americana,  I  was  attracted 
by  an  odd  quarto  manuscript  of  fifty- 
five  pages,  found  among  the  manu- 
scripts of  Hon.  William  Bradford  and 
presented  to  the  library  by  John 
William  Wallace.  It  was  entitled 
''Father     Bumbo's     Pilgrimage     to 


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PHILIP   FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S   FIRST   POET 


423 


Mecca  in  Arabia;  written  by  H.  B. 
and  P.  F.,  1770."  One  can  easily 
translate  these  letters  into  the  names 
of  the  college  friends,  Brackenridge 
and  Freneau.  The  pages  contain 
prose  narrative  "of  innumerable  and 
surprising  adventures,"  with  doggerel 
rhymes  on  more  ambitious  themess 
and  interwoven  political  thrusts.  Mr. 
Paltsits,  in  his  Bibliography  of  Fre- 
neau, has  identified  this  unique  relic 
as  a*  collection  of  saitires  or  "political 
tirades"  written  by  these  collabo- 
rators against  a  rival  college  society. 
The  fraternity  of  the  American  Whig 
Society  had  been  succeeded  by  the 
Chiosophic  Society  of  Tories,  and  war 
resulted,  waged  fiercely  by  the  voices 
and  pens  of  the  ardent  Brackenridge 
and  Freneau. 

After  leaving  college,  these  two 
friends  began  teaching  in  Princess 
Anne,  Maryland,  while  Freneau  had 
a  fleeting  ambition  to  study  theology. 
Miss  Austin,  in  her  life  of  the  poet, 
says  that  this  experience  lasted  onlv 
thirteen  days,  while  his  career  as 
teacher,  though  more  prolonged, 
seemed  hardly  more  satisfying.  After 
an  experience  at  Flatbush  his  disgust 
broke  forth  in  rhyme, — "The  Miser- 
able Life  of  a  Pedagogue:" — 

"From  Flushing  hills  to  Flatbush  plains, 
Deep  ignorance  imrivall'd  reigns." 

Apparently,  he  had  not  patience  to 
penetrate  this  deep  ignorance.  From 
Somerset  Academy  he  wrote  to  Mad- 
ison,— "This  is  the  last  time  I  shall 
enter  into  such  a  business ;  it  worries 
me  to  death  and  by  no  means  suits 
my  'giddy,  wandering  brain.'  I  be- 
lieve if  I  cannot  make  this  out  I 
must  turn  cjuack,  and  indeed  I  am 
now   reading   Physic   at   my   leisure 


hours,  that  is,  when  I  am  neither 
sleeping,  having  classes  or  writing 
Poetry — for  these  three  take  up  all 
my  time."  A  brief  devotion  to  law- 
study  satisfied  him  of  the  futility  of 
any  of  the  triad  of  professions  to 
satisfy  a  soul  full  of  vague,  alluring 
fancies.  During  these  years  of  young 
manhood  he  wrote  some  of  his  most 
spontaneous  lyrics,  but  they  were 
seldom  acknowledged  in  the  journals 
where  they  appeared,  and  were  lost 
for  many  years  until  the  collation  of 
his  verse.  When  the  war  was  immi- 
nent, though  its  premonitions  had 
not  aroused  his  pen  to  any  extent, 
the  patriot  awoke,  he  became  tremu- 
lous with  zeal,  and  began  his  service 
as  satirist.  In  "The  Author"  he  ati- 
nounced  his  renunciation  of  the  role 
of  lyrist  for  the  lampoonist : — 

**An  age  employed  in  pointing  steel, 
Can  no  poetic  raptures  feel; 


The  Muse  of  Love  in  no  request, 
ril  try  my  fortune  with  the  rest. 
Which  of  the  nine  shall  I  engage, 
To  suit  the  humor  of  the  age.'' 
On  one,  alas!  my  choice  must  fall, 
The  least  engaging  of  them  all." 

In  1775  appeared  an  acrid  satire, 
"The  Midnight  Consultations,"  or  "A 
Voyage  to  Boston."  An  interesting 
original  of  this  lampoon  is  in  the  li- 
brary of  the  American  Antiquarian 
Society  at  Worcester,  Massachusetts. 
The  scene  is  at  the  quarters  of  General 
Gage  on  the  night  after  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill.  Against  this  weak, 
querulous  commander  Freneau  hurled 
all  his  shafts  of  ridicule.  Engraven 
amid  the  caricatures  of  this  age  are 
his  lines,  the  moan  of  General 
Gage : — 


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PHILIP    FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S    FIRST    POET 


**Three  weeks — ye  gods!  nay,  three  long 
years  it  seems. 

Since  roast  beef  I  have  touched  except  in 
dreams. 

In  sleep,  choice  dishes  to  my  view  re- 
pair,— 

Waking,  I  gape  and  champ  the  empty  air. 

Say,  is  it  just  that  I,  who  rule  these  bands. 

Should  live  on  husks,  like  rakes  in  for- 
eign lands?*' 

The  literary  fecundity  af  Freneau, 
no  less  than  his  patriotism,  may  be 
witnessed  in  the  fact  that  within  six 
months  of  1775  he  wrote  five  satires 
in  verse  in  addition  to  many  prose 
essays.  Of  the  former,  the  one 
just  cited,  "General  Gage's  Solilo- 
quy," and  "MacSwiggen,"  retain 
memory  in  literary  history.  Uneven 
in  workmanship,  with  less  natural  wit 
than  Trumhuirs  "MTingal/'  they 
arc  valuable  records  of  the  rancour 
against  the  British  besiegers  and  the 
intense  bitterness  which  submerged, 
for  the  time,  the  finer  qualities  of  the 
poet. 

During  the  first  year  of  active  war. 
Freneau  seemed  willing  lo  serve  the 
cause  with  all  his  powers,  though  ho 
was  never  a  soldier,  as  has  been  er- 
roneously stated.  His  sensitive, 
restless  nature  fretted  against  the 
delays  and  retrogressions  in  the  path 
of  the  colonies  before  actual  seces 
sion  and  freedom  could  be  pro- 
claimed. In  the  meantime  he  in- 
dulged in  a  long-cherished  plan, — 
a  voyage  to  the  West  Indies. 
Combining  trade  with  pleasure  he 
visited  Satita  Cruz,  Jamaica  and 
other  ports.  Occasional  strains  in 
worship  of  liberty  show  remem- 
brance of  his  struggling  country,  but, 
gradually,  under  the  influence  of 
sunny,  tropical  skies,  his  poetic 
tenderness   broke  through   the   tem- 


porary armor  of  satire  and  he  wrote 
the  sensuous  "Beauties  of  Santa: 
Cruz*'  and  the  mystic  "House  of 
Night."  In  the  pictorial  stanzas  de- 
scriptive of  Southern  nature,  none 
surpass  these  in  melody: — 

"Among  the  shades  of  yonder  whispering 
grove, 
The  green  palmetoes  mingle,  tall  and 
fair, 
That  ever  murmur  and  forever  move. 
Fanning  with  wavy  bough  the  ambient 
air." 

"The  House  of  Night"  is  a  strange, 
haunting  vision  with  suggestions  of 
Coleridge  and  Poe.  Professor 
Ricliardson,  who  is  chary  of  undue 
praise  for  early  writers,  says  of  this 
poem, — "To  those  who  enjoy  a  liter- 
ary *find'  and  like  to  read  and  praise 
a  bit  of  bizarre  genius  unknown  to 
the  multitude,  I  confidently  commend 
The  House  of  Night.'  It  is  not 
great  and  not  always  smooth ;  but  its 
lofty  plot  is  strongly  worded  in  some- 
times stately  verse."  Lacking  the 
delicate  mysticism  of  " Christ abel"  or 
"Ulalume,"  there  are  passages  of 
haunting  thrill,  like  this  vision  of  the 
death  of  Death  at  the  witching  mid- 
night hour:  — 

"Dark  was  the  sky,  and  not  one  friendly 
star 
Shone    from    the    zenith,    or    horizon 
clear; 
Mist  sate  upon  the  plains,  and  darkness 
rode 
In  her  dark  chariot  with  her  ebon  spear. 
And  from  the  wilds,  the  late  resounding 
note 
Issued,  of  the  loquacious  whippoorwill ; 
Hoarse,  howling  dogs,  and  nightly  roving 
wolves 
Clamoured    from    far-off    cliffs,    invis- 
ible." 

Certain  love-sonnets  suggest  a 
fond  Amanda  to  whom  the  poet  paid 


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PHILIP    FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S    FIRST   POET 


425 


homage  in  his  wanderings, — possibly 
the  comely  daughter  of  his  host  in  the 
Bermudas.  This  experience,  how- 
ever, paled  before  his  exciting  adven- 
ture in  1780  when  his  ship,  the 
Aurora,  sailing  out  of  Delaware  Bay, 
was  pursued  and  captured  by  the 
British  Iris.  The  account  of  this 
capture  atid  his  subsequent  sufferings 
upon  the  prison-ships  were  told  in 
vivid,  intense  verse  by  Freneau,  and, 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  his  imagination 
was  stirred  to  anger  by  memory  of 
the  weeks  aboard  the  Hunter  and 
the  Scorpion.  At  the  beginning 
of  this  twentieth  century  there  was 
published  from  his  manuscript,  in  a 
thin,  artistic  volume,  his  prose  narra- 
tive,— "Some  Account  of  the  Capture 
of  the  Ship  Aurora'."  This  was 
written,  we  are  told,  two  days  after 
his  release  from  the  prison-ship. 
The  description  of  the  hospital-ship 
is  graphic  and  paJthetic.  As  apt  alle- 
gory, he  closes  the  passage  with  a 
long  citation  from  the  scenes  of  the 
lazar-house  in  "Paradise  Lost." 

After  this  torturing  experience, 
weakened  by  fever  and  exposure,  Fre- 
neau returned  to  New  Jersey,  where 
he  again  took  up  the  task  of  a  satirist 
with  new  vigor  incited  by  personal 
grievance.  With  merciless  scorn  he 
ridiculed  King  George,  Lord  Corn- 
walHs,  Sir  Henry  Clinton  and  the 
Loyalist  printers,  Gaine  and  Riving- 
ton.  Of  all  the  satires  written  during 
the  years  from  1780  to  1782,  three 
became  popular  and  were  widely 
copied  and  quoted, — these  were  "Riv- 
ing^on's  I^st  Will  and  Testament,'' 
akin  to  some  of  Francis  Hopkinson's 
lampoons  ujx>n  the  same  theme, — 
"The  Prophecy,"  and  the  elegy  com- 


memorative of  the  battle  of  Eutaw 
Springs.  'The  Prophecy"  caught 
the  fancy  of  the  troops  and  the  people 
by  its  rollicking  bravado  and  its 
clever  personal  masks: — 

"When  a  certain  great  king,  whose  initial 

is  G, 
Shall  force  stamps  upon  paper  and  folks 

to  drink  tea; 
When    these    folks    burn    his    tea    and 

stamped  paper,  like  stubble, 
You   may  guess   that  this  king  is  then 

coming  to  trouble. 
But  when  a  petition  he  treads  under  his 

feet. 
And  sends  over  the  ocean  an  army  and 

fleet; 
When  that  army,  half  starved  and  half 

frantic  with  rage, 
Shall  be  cooped  up  with  a  leader  whose 

name  rhymes  with  cage; 
When  that  leader  goes  home  dejected  and 

sad, 
You  may  then  be  assured  the  king's  pros- 
pects are  bad. 
But  when  B.  and  C.  with  their  armies  are 

taken, 
The  king  will  do  well  if  he  saves  his  own 

bacon. 
In  the  year  seventeen  hundred  and  eighty 

and  two, 
A  stroke  he  will  get  that  will  make  him 

look  blue; 
In    the    years    eighty-three,    eighty-four, 

eighty-five, 
You  hardly  shall  know  that  the  king  is 

alive; 
In  the  year  eighty-six  the  affair  will  be 

over, 
And  he   shall   eat   turnips  that   grow   in 

Hanover. 
The  face  of  the  Lion  shall  then  become 

pale, 
He  shall  yield  fifteen  teeth  and  be  shorn 

of  his  tail. 
O  king,  my  dear  king,  you  shall  be  very 

sore; 
The  Stars  and  the  Lily  shall  run  you  on 

shore, 
And  your   Lion   shall  growl — but   never 

bite  more." 

If  this    rhyme   seems   puerile   and 


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PHILIP   FRENEAU:   AMERICA'S   FIRST   POET 


scarcely  wortliy  of  inclusion  among 
the  poet's  work,  it  has  been  long  re- 
membered and  was  recently  men- 
tioned in  a  critical  literary  study  as 
one  of  the  most  familiar  and  typical 
satires  of  the  Revolution.  As  evi- 
dence of  the  versatility  of  Freneau 
and  his  rank  in  higher  forms  of  verse, 
we  need  only  recall  the  stanzas,  com- 
posed at  about  the  same  time  as  "The 
Prophecy," — "To  the  Memory  of  the 
Brave  Americans  under  General 
Greene,  who  fell  in  the  Action  of  Sep- 
tember 8,  1781."  This  elegy,  like  the 
panegyric  on  the  victory  of  Paul 
Jones  over  the  Serapis,  was  tender 
and  graceful.  A  poet's  regret  for 
war  is  voiced  in  the  victory-ode, — 

"Alas!  that  e'er  the  gods  decreed 
That  brother  should  by  brother  bleed. 
And  pour'd  such  madness  in  the  mind." 

The  elegy,  better  known  to  modern 
readers  as  "The  Battle  of  Euta\v 
Springs,"  has  the  stanza,  noble  in 
thought  and  words, — 

"Stranger,  their  humble  graves  adorn; 
You,  too,  may  fall  and  ask  a  tear: 
Tis  not  the  beauty  of  the  morn 

That  proves  the  evening  shall  be  clear.** 

This  was  tiie  poem  praised  by 
Scott, — "as  fine  a  thing  as  there  is  of 
the  kind  in  the  language."  In  view 
of  this  confession,  the  line  in  "Mar- 
mion,"  almost  identical  with  Fre- 
neau's, — 

"They  took  the  spear — but  left  the  shield," 
has  been  accounted  by  some  critics 
as  plagiarism  on  Scott's  part,  but  to 
other  minds  it  would  seem  only  a 
case  of  literary  coincidence,  possibly 
due  to  Freneau's  suggestion. 

At  the  close  of  the  war,  Freneau 
was  still  a  young  man,  under  thirty, 
with  a  reputation  for  mental  alertness 
and  truculent  wit,  but  with  no  defi- 


nite program  of  life.  He  had  already 
abandoned  several  lines  of  permanent 
employment;  his  erratic  genius  was 
averse  to  concentrated  effort.  Dur- 
ing 1779  he  had  contributed  much 
prose  and  verse  to  The  United  States 
Magaziney  edited  by  his  friend, 
Brackenridge.  Here  appeared  his 
famous  satire,  "Soliloquy  of  George 
III,"  in  addition,  to  minor  work.  He 
had  also  written  frequently  for  The 
Freeman's  Journal  of  Philadelphia, 
published  by  Francis  Bailey.  When 
the  question  of  a  fixed  occupation, 
and  more  important  a  stable  income, 
pressed  upon  the  poet  he  decided  to 
seek  some  place  as  editor.  His  first 
venture  was  an  arrangement  with 
The  Nezv  York  Advertiser,  but,  on 
the  advice  of  Mariison,  he  changed 
this  position  for  the  editorship  of 
The'  National  Gazette,  which  be- 
came a  veritable  thorn  in  the  Hesh 
to  Hamilton  and  the  Federalists,  and 
was  destined  to  cast  a  stigma  upon 
Freneau  during  his  later  life  and  for 
decades  after  his  death.  In  her 
apotheosis  of  Alexander  Hamilton 
as  "The  Conqueror,"  Mrs.  Atherton 
has  revived  the  memory  of  intense 
hatred  toward  Freneau  and  his  pa- 
per on  the  part  of  the  Federal  leaders. 
The  calm  Washington  found  this 
sheet  so  annoying  that  he  brought 
the  matter  before  his  Cabinet  and 
said, — "That  rascal  Freneau  sent  him 
three  copies  of  his  paper  a  day,  as  if 
he  thought  he  would  become  the 
distributer  of  them ;  that  he  could  see 
in  this  nothing  but  an  impudent  de- 
sign to  insult  him." 

The  special  cause  of  such  animos- 
ity toward  the  editor  of  this  paper 
was     the     general     impression     that 


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it  was  the  organ  of  Jefferson  and 
Madison,  through  which  they  cov- 
ertly directed  attacks  upon  the  ad- 
ministration. Jefferson  sought  then 
and  afterwards  to  deny  all  alliance 
with  the  editorials  and  compelled 
Freneau  to  take  an  oath  that  no  pub- 
lications in  his  Gazette  "were  directed, 
controlled  or  attempted  to  be  influ- 
enced in  any  manner  either  by  the 
Secretary  of  State  or  any  of  his 
friends."  Such  denials,  however, 
could  not  control  public  opinion,  that 
found  another  cause  for  complaint  in 
the  fact  that  Freneau  was  appointed 
by  Jefferson  as  foreign  translator  for 
the  Department  of  State.  This  was 
a  sinecure  for  the  poet-editor.  The 
labors  were  trivial,  requiring,  he 
wrote,  "no  other  qualification  than  a 
moderate  knowledge  of  French," 
while  the  salary  of  $250  was  a  grate- 
ful boon.  When  the  sentiments  of 
Freneau's  Gazette  became  too  odious 
to  the  supporters  of  Washing- 
ton and  Hamilton,  they  rallied  their 
forces  and,  through  the  medium  of 
the  rival  organ,  Fenno's  Gazette. 
attacked  both  Jefferson  and  his  pro- 
tege. Forced  to  answer,  Jefferson 
admitted  that  he  furnished  FreneaM 
with  copies  of  the  Leyden  Gazettes^ 
that  Washington  and  his  counx:illors 
might  "get  a  juster  view  of  the  affairs 
of  Europe,"  but  avowed  "before 
Heaven  he  had  no  other  influence  over 
Freneau's  paper."  In  a  letter  to  the 
President,  in  the  sixth  volume  of  his 
writings,  Jefferson  mentioned  the 
charge  of  complicity  against  him, 
especially  explaining  the  appointment 
of  Freneau  as  translator.  Here  he 
reiterates  his  innocence  in  the  matters 
of  editorials,  and  adds,— "And  I  can 


safely  declare  that  my  expectations 
looked  only  to  the  chastisement  of  the 
aristocratical  and  monarchial  writers, 
and  not  to  any  criticism  on  the  pro- 
ceedings of  government."  In  other 
letters  to  Randolph  and  Madison, 
however,  Jefferson  exulted  in  the  in- 
troduction of  Freneau's  paper  into 
Massachusetts  and  deplored  its 
discontinuance  in  1793,  because  of 
lack  of  funds,  adding, — "He  promises 
to  resume  it  before  the  meeting  of 
Congress." 

The  exact  relation  between  Fre- 
neau as  editor  and  Jefferson  as  Sec- 
retary of  State  will  ever  be  a  mooted 
question.  In  his  own  day  Freneau 
suffered  much  from  the  supporters  of 
Washington,  even  after  Jefferson 
came  into  power.  A  few  leaders 
always  maintained  that  the  editor 
was  a  tool  in  the  hands  of  Jeffer- 
son, who  escaped  open  challenge 
by  this  subterfuge.  The  life  of 
Jefferson  by  Theodore  Dwight, 
published  in  1839,  gives  a  con- 
temporaneous view,  and,  on  pages 
129-149,  arraigns  Jefferson  for  com- 
plicity, if  not  dictation,  quoting  his 
commendation  of  Freneau,  —  "His 
paper  has  saved  our  Constitution, 
which  was  fast  galloping  into  mon- 
archy." No  student  of  Freneau*s 
life  can  believe  that  he  would  sub- 
mit to  being  a  "tool"  in  the  hands  of 
any  man, — his  independence  and 
force  of  character  would  forbid  such 
a  condition.  That  Jefferson  approved 
of  his  paper  and  quietly  assisted  in 
widening  its  influence  must  be  the 
conclusion,  though  he  cannot  be 
charged  with  direct  connivance  in  the 
attacks  upon  the  administration. 
Undoubtedly,  Freneau  *s  strong  sym- 


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PHILIP   FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S    FIRST    POET 


pathy  for  France  explained  much  of 
his  personal  antagonism  to  the  Feder- 
alists at  this  time  of  agitation  over 
Jay's  treaty  and  Genet's  mission. 

Freneau*s  challenge  to  Washing- 
ton's diplomatic  and  financial  policies, 
however,  never  dimmed  his  admira- 
tion for  the  man  and  soldier.  Fre- 
neau's  daughter,  Agnes,  bore  testi- 
mony to  the  kindly  relations  between 
her  father  and  Washington  in  later 
life,  and  recalled  a  visit  of  the  latter 
to  their  home,  when  he  held  her  upon 
his  lap  and  greeted  all  with  great 
cordiality.  Another  fscmily  tradition 
would  indicate  that  Freneau  resented 
the  attitude  taken  by  Jefferson  and 
refused  him  adulation.  It  was  said 
that,  when  Jefferson  was  President, 
he  was  willing  to  find  a  position  for 
Freneau  and  sent  for  him  on  impor- 
tant business.  The  haughty  poet, 
chafing  under  his  undeserved  slights, 
replied, — "Tell  Thomas  Jefferson  that 
he  knows  where  Philip  Freneau  lives, 
and  that,  if  he  has  important  business 
with  him,  let  him  come  to  Philip  Fre- 
neau's  house  and  transact  it."  Among 
the  many  elegies  on  Washing- 
ton, none  was  more  stately  and 
sympathetic  than  Freneau's  "Stanzas 
to  the  Memory  of  General  Washing- 
ton, December  14,  1799."  Resenting 
the  tone  of  extravagant  eulogy  then 
rife,  he  summarized  the  traits  of  the 
master-general : — 

**He  was  no  god,  ye  flattering  knaves, 
He  owned  no  world,  he  ruled  no  waves; 
But, — and  exalt  it  if  you  can, — 
He  was  the  upright,  honest  man. 

"This  was  his  glory,  this  outshone 
Those  attributes  you  dote  upon  r 
On  this  strong  ground  he  took  his  stand. 
Such  virtue  saved  a  sinking  land." 


of  Freneau  we  have  passed  by  certain 
important  changes  in  his  domestic 
life.  In  1789  he  married  gay,  brilliant 
Eleatior  Forman  of  a  noted  New- 
Jersey  family,  and  hence  he  had  a 
double  reason  for  his  zeal,  in  1790,  to 
gain  a  permanent  income.  The  lady 
had  a  taste  for  verse  and  the  two  lov- 
ers corresponded  "in  lyric  measures" 
for  more  than  a  year  prior  to  their 
marriage.  A  portion  of  this  corre- 
spondence appeared  in  the  Gazette  in 
1 79 1  under  the  signatures  of  "Ella" 
and  **Birtha.**  In  the  collation  of 
"American  Poems,"  by  Dr.  Elihu 
Smith  in  1793,  I  chanced  upon  one  of 
these  sonnets,  there  accredited  to 
Freneau  as  "Birtha,"  It  has  been  lost 
among  his  collected  poems  and  is  in- 
ferior to  his  more  s|X)ntaneous  lyrics, 
yet  because  it  has  been  overlooked 
among  the  nature-odes  it  deserves 
remembrance : — 

"The  Lord  of  Light  has  joumey'd  down 

the  sky, 
And  bath*d  his  coursers  in  the  foaming 

wave; 
The   twinkling    star    of    even    hastes    to 

lave 
Her  silver  form  and  vanish  from  my  eye. 
Now   dusky   twilight   flings   her   sombre 

shade, 
O'er   the    bright    beauties    of   the    silent 

vale. 
The  aspen  trembles  not,  the  verdant  blade 
No  longer  nodding  answers  to  the  gale: 
Come,  sweet   Reflection!  hither,  pensive 

maid! 
Direct  thy  wandering  steps,  and   on    this 

stone. 
Worn  by  no  traveller's  feet,  with  moss 

o'ergrown. 
Repose  with  me,  in  solitude's  deep  shade. 
Then  shall  I  know  the  heights  of  human 

bliss, 
And  taste  the  joys  of  other  worlds  in 

this." 


In  the  survey  of  the  political  career         After  the  failure  of  his  Philadelphia 


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PHILIP   FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S    FIRST    POET 


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Gazette  in  October,  1793,  and  the 
more  disappointing  rebuffs  when  he 
sought  other  positions,  Freneau 
moved  his  types  to  Monmouth,  con- 
structing a  lodging-place  for  his  press 
near  his  home,  and  here  he  edited  and 
printed  the  first  complete  edition  of 
his  poems,  also  The  Monmouth 
Almanack  and  The  Jersey  Chron- 
icle, This  little  sheet  was  limited  to 
one  year  of  life,  and  a  few  copies,  now- 
extant,  afford  unique  entertainment 
to  the  literary  antiquarian.  The  most 
complete  file  is  in  possession  of  the 
New  York  Historical  Society,  but 
scattered  copies  are  found  at  the 
Library  of  th«  American  Antiquarian 
Society  and  the  State  Historical  So- 
ciety of  Wisconsin.  The  page  here 
reproduced  is  from  the  issue  for 
April  2,  1796,  at  the  Library  of 
the  American  Antiquarian  Society 
in  Worcester.  The  typographi- 
cal form  was  crude  and  incongru- 
ous, and  the  type  uneven  and  poor. 
Within  the  eight  small  quarto  pages, 
however,  were  spirited  comments, 
general  political  a:nd  social  news,  and 
occasional  jibes  at  "the  aggravating 
insults  offered  to  Americans,  notwith- 
standing the  treaty  of  Mr.  Jay  from 
which  the  temporizing  citizens  of 
America  expected  so  many  important 
advantages."  The  motto  on  this 
little  sheet  was  an  apt  quotation  from 
Horace,  ''Inter  sylvas  Academi  quae- 
rere  verum"  A  letter  to  Madison  ex- 
panded the  same  thought: — "As  I 
mean  to  pass  the  remainder  of 
my  days  on  a  couple  of  hundreds 
of  acres  of  an  old  sandy  patri- 
mony, I  have,  by  way  of  filling  up 
the  vacuities  of  time,  set  on  foot 
a    small,    weekly    newspaper,    calcu- 


lated for  the  part  of  the  country 
in  which  I  am."  Apparently,  the  re- 
sponse from  the  neighborhood  failed 
to  encourage  the  continuance  of  the 
journal,  aiid  after  its  fleeting  life  of  a 
year,  Freneau  went  to  Charleston  to 
pay  an  extended  visit  to  his  brother. 
His  last  journalistic  venture  was  in 
I797»  when  he  edited  The  New  York 
Time-Piece  and  Literary  Companion,  a 
cumbrous  title,  yet  a  well-printed  and 
ambitious  journal.  For  a  time  he  did 
the  press-work  as  well  as  the  writing. 
From  a  copy  in  the  Lenox  Library  I 
read  its  advertisement, — to  be  issued 
Mondays,  Wednesdays  and  Fridays, 
at  four  dollars  a  year  and  "published 
by  P.  Freneau  and  M.  L.  Davis  at  26 
Moore  Street."  This  paper  was  a 
compendium  for  some  of  Freneau's 
later  poems,  and  also  his  "Travels  of 
M.  Abbe  Robin,"  with  a  vivid  picture 
of  the  French  campaign  under  Count 
Rochambeau. 

In  the  intervals  between  his  journal- 
istic experiences,  Freneau  often  re- 
newed the  vocation  of  his  youth. 
When  the  New  York  paper  failed  to 
warrant  further  efforts,  he  made  sea- 
faring and  trading  his  business  for  a 
longer  period.  On  a  brig,  bought 
and  rigged  by  his  brother  Peter,  he 
made  journeys  to  the  West  Indies, 
and  even  as  far  as  Calcutta  in  1809. 
For  many  years  he  had  been  called 
"Captain  Freneau"  and  had  been 
master  of  staunch  craft,  though  he 
often  suffered  misfortunes,  as  certain 
letters  to  Francis  Bailey  printed 
in  the  Freeman's  Journal  between 
1787-9  testify.  Clearly  he  resented 
the  sympathy  of  his  friends  in  his 
troubles  and,  with  a  proud  note, 
questions  if  "any  poet  from  Hesiod 


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PHILIP    FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S    FIRST    POET 


down  to  Peter  Pindar  has  been 
trusted  with  the  control  or  possession 
of  anything  fit  to  be  mentioned  or 
compaa-ed  with  the  same  barque  which 
you  say  I  'have  the  misfortune  to 
comnuuxL'"  There  is  a  note  of 
pathetic  disappointment  also  in  this 
same  letter: — "Formerly,  when  I 
wrote  poetry  most  of  those  that  at- 
tended to  it  would  not  allow  my 
verses  to  be  good.  I  gave;  credit  to 
what  I  deemed  the  popular  opinion 
and  made  a  safe  retreat  in  due  time 
to  the  solitary  wastes  of  Neptune." 
Despite  such  disparaging  comments, 
Freneau's  poems  did  attain  a  marked 
popularity,  though  they  failed  to  win 
the  literary  appreciation  which  he 
craved.  The  volume  first  issued  by 
Francis  Bailey  in  1787  met  a  re- 
sponse of  unusual  warmth  for  the 
time,  and  his  occasional  verses  were 
widely  quoted.  In  an  issue  of  the 
Freeman's  Journal  for  December  9, 
1789,  I  found  "The  Pilot  of  Hat- 
teras,"  with  the  signature,  "Captain 
Freneau."  Beneath  was  this  fulsome 
tribute:  "This  celebrated  Genius,  the 
Peter  Pindar  of  America,  is  now  a 
master  of  a  Packet,  which  runs  be- 
tween New  York,  Philadelphia  and 
Charleston.  His  tuneful  numbers 
during  the  war  did  much  to  soften  the 
disagreeable  sensation  which  a  state 
of  warfare  so  generally  occasions.'' 
From  our  point  of  view  it  would  seem 
as  if  his  "tuneful  numbers"  fostered 
acrimony;  the  reference  may  be  to 
the  lighter  lyrics  of  fancy  and  semi- 
ironical  doggerel,  ever  popular  at  the 
time,  and  affoi  ding  us  a  good  picture 
of  the  social  traits  of  his  age.  "Cris- 
pin O'Connor/'  "The  Village  Mer- 
chant,"    "Farmer     Dobbin's     Com- 


plaint," "Advice  to  the  Ladies  not  to 
Neglect  the  Dentist," — such  are  flash- 
light photographs  of  earlier  rural  life 
in  America.  "The  Village  Merchant" 
gained  much  favor  and  was  reprinted, 
with  "The  Country  Printer,"  in  a 
pamphlet  form,  a*  copy  of  which  is  in 
the  Library  of  the  Pennsylvania  His- 
torical Society,  bearing  imprint 
of  Hoflf  &  Derrick,  Philadelphia. 
1794.  From  his  own  experience  he 
could  well  describe  "The  Country 
Printer":— 

"With  anxious   care   and   circumspective 

eye, 
He  dresses  aut  his  little  sheet  af  news; 
Now  laughing  at  the  world,  now  looking 

grave, 
At   once   the   Muse's   midwife  and   her 
slave." 

To  the  pages  of  this  same  Freeman  s 
Journal,  one  must  turn  for  the  original 
of  many  of  Fieneau's  most  exquisite 
natiu-e-lyrics,  as  well  a's  his  doggerel 
narratives.  In  the  issue  for  April  18, 
1787,  is  the  dainty  little  song,  sharing 
with  "The  Wild  Honey-suckle"  first 
rank  among  his  poems.  In  this  ode 
to  spring,  "May  to  April,"  is  beauty  of 
fancy  and  expression: — 

"Without  your  showers  I  breed  no  flowers, 

Each  field  a  barren  waste  appears. 
If  you  don't  weep  my  blossoms  sleep, 
They  take  such  pleasure  in  your  tears." 

Among  the  most  popular  song^  of 
the  closing  decades  of  the  century 
was  "The  Death-Song  of  the  Chero- 
kee Indian."  Its  authorship  has  ever 
been  a  subject  of  dispute.  Though  it 
is  not  found  in  the  collected  poems  of 
Freneau,  it  was  clearly  suggested  as 
his  in  "The  American  Museum," 
Volume  I,  and  was  chosen  by 
Duyckinck,  a  friend  of  Freneau's,  for 
one  of  the  poems  cited  from  him  in 


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the  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Litera- 
ture. During  his  life-time  it  was 
twice,  at  least,  mentioned  by  promi- 
nent critics  as  one  of  his  most  worthy 
poems,  and  Freneau  was  too  honest 
to  accept  false  tribute.  Though 
claimed  as  the  work  of  Mrs.  Ann 
Hunter,  an  Englishwoman,  in  the  col- 
lection of  her  poems  published  in 
1806,  the  claim  was  not  accepted.  It 
was  used  by  Royall  Tyler  in  his  play.. 
**The  Contrast,"  in  1790,  and  has 
been  accredited  to  him,  though 
familiarity  with  Tyler's  crude  verse 
disqualifies  this  probability.  The  lay 
is  still  found  in  school  song- 
books  of  comparatively  modern 
times : — 

"The  sun  sets  at  night  and  the  stars  shun 

the  day, 
But  glory  remains  when  the  light  fades 

away; 
Begin,  ye  tormenters,  your  threats  are  in 

vain. 
But  the   son   of  Alknomook  will   never 

complain." 

While  actual  proof  is  lacking  to  es- 
tablish this  poem  as  Freneau's  work, 
there  are  good  suppositions  for  his 
authorship.  In  sentiment  atid  theme 
it  is  accordant  with  some  of  his  most 
distinctive  poetry.  If  he  was  our  first 
nature-poet,  he  was  also  the  first 
author  to  grasp  and  portray  the  ro- 
mantic features  of  Indian  life.  One 
might  question  if  he  has  been '  sur- 
passed in  this  phase  of  poetry,  except 
in  "Hiawatha."  In  his  poems,  "The 
Indian  Burying- Ground,"  and  the 
Indian  Student,"  he  combined  scen- 
ery with  a  fine  study  of  racial  traits. 
The  reader  feels  sympathy  for  the 
hero,  lonely  amid  his  scientific 
studies  and  recurring  to  his  native 
creed : — 


Philip  Freneau 

"A  Mttle  could  my  wants  supply, 

Can  wealth  or  honor  give  me  more? 
Or,  will  the  sylvan  god  deny 

The  humble  treat  he  gave  before? 
"Let  seraphs  reach  the  bright  abode 

And  heaven's  sublimest  mansions  see, 
I  only  bow  to  Nature's  God, 

The  Land  of  Shades  will  do  for  me." 
Freneau  was  master  of  a  clever  style 
in  prose,  as  may  be  realized  by  reading 
the  "Letters  by  Robert  Slender,  O. 
S.  M./'  which  appeared  in  The 
Aurora,  and  were  printed  at  that 
office  in  a  quaint  booklet  in  Decem- 
ber, 1799.  There  are  bits  of  subjec- 
tive satire  against  political  favoritism 
toward  former  Tories,  but,  in  the 
main,  the  wit  is  restrained  and  keen. 
His  "Advice  to  Young  Authors"  has 
a  unique  tone  in  these  days  of  ser- 
vility,— "Never  make  a  present  of 
your  works  to  great  men.  If  they  do 
not  think  them  worth  purchasing, 
trust  me  they  will  never  think  them 
worth  reading." 

The  last  thirty  years  of  Freneau'? 


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Freneau's  Brook 

life  were  given  to  memories  rather 
than  active  service.  He  made  frequent 
visits  to  Philadelphia  and  New  York, 
and  was  ever  welcomed  at  the  homes 
of  Governor  Clinton,  Dr.  Francis  and 
other  men  of  affairs  and  culture.  A 
favorite  haunt  was  in  Hanover  Square 
with  its  book-shops  and  associations 
with  his  victims  of  the  past,  the  print- 
ers Gaine  and  Rivington.  His  witty 
conversation  was  coveted  by  many  a 
hostess.  Averse  to  having  his  por- 
trait painted,  he  circumvented  many 
a  ruse  to  accomplish  this  end.  The 
face  known  to  us  as  his  was  made 
from  a  slight  sketch,  elaborated  after 
his  death,  and  accepted  by  the  family 
and  friends  as  almost  a  perfect  like- 
ness. The  tender  heart,  which  could 
not  endure  sacrifice  of  sheep  or  poul- 
try on  his  farm,  and  chided  his  daugh- 
ter for  killing  a  fly,  looks  forth  from 
the  beautiful  eyes.  On  an  early  visit 
to  the  West  Indies  he  was  tortured 
by  slavery,  as  practised'  there  by  one 
Sir  Toby,  who  was  assailed  in  verse. 
On  his  own  estate,  to  whose  "misman- 
agement" he  often  laughingly  re- 
ferred, Freneau  manumitted  all  his 
slaves  and  supported  the  old  and  help- 
less from  an  income  often  meagre  to 
supply    his    own    tastes.     If    worldly 

432 


Old  How  Homestead 

wants  gave  him  occasional  anxiety, 
he  found  delight  in  his  home  and  four 
charming  daughters,  in  one  of  the 
best  private  libraries  of  the  period,  in 
his  friends,  who  came  often  from  a 
distance,  and  in  his  "Power  of  Fan- 
cy," which,  as  the  years  passed,  knew 
neither  waning  nor  discontent. 

Despite  Freneau's  influential  friends, 
he  often  failed  to  win  an  adequate  in- 
come,   and    his    pride    forbade    any 
adulation  to  gain  office.     A  Charles- 
ton friend,  asking  his  appointment  as 
postmaster  of    New   York    in    1801, 
wrote, — "He    is    a    virtuous,    honest 
man  and  an  undeviating  Republican; 
yet  utterly  incapable  of  soliciting  for 
himself."     His    early    experience   as 
editor    of    the    Gazette    still    worked 
against  his  advance  in  political  mat- 
ters.    The  War  of  181 2  reawakened 
his  patriotic  zeal,  and  he  wrote  and 
published,  with  trifling  remuneration, 
if  any,   scores   of  poems  celebrating 
the  victories   of   Hull,   Decatur  and 
their  crews.     His  own  love  for  the 
sea  and  knowledge  of  nautical  terms 
gave    added    zest    to    the    themes. 
They  are  found  on  broadsides  of  the 
time  and  are  largely  included  in  the 
last  edition  of  his  poetry,  published, 
in  generous  form,  in  181 5,  by  David 


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/^'I;^^ 


Longworth.     Among    them    is    the 
"Ode  to  Liberty,"  beginning, 

"God  Save  the  Rights  of  Man  I" 
which  is  still  sung  at  patriotic  celebra- 
tions,  to   the  tune  of    our  national 
hymn. 

During  Freneau's  later  life  he  suf- 
fered a  keen  loss  in  the  destruction 
by  fire,  in  1818,  of  his  house  and 
many  inherited  treasures.  He  passed 
the  rest  of  his  years  at  the  former 
home  of  Mrs.  Freneau's  father,  near 
his  own  estate  and  the  little  purling 
brook,  so  often  poetized. 

The  sad  circumstances  of  the 
death  of  the  poet,  augmented  by 
somewhat  of  mystery,  awakened 
popular  interest  in  the  man  who,  for 
many  years,  had  seemed  forgotten  by 
the  countrymen  whom  he  had  served. 
On  the  evening  of  December  18, 
1832,    he    left    a    friend's    house    in 


Freehold,  nearly  two  miles  from  his 
own  home.  A  severe  snow-storm 
was  raging;  probably  he  became 
overcome  by  the  storm  and  lost  his 
way, — he  v/as  past  eighty, — for  he 
was  found  dead  the  next  morning  in 
the  bog-meadow.  Side  by  side,  in 
the  burial-field  near  his  home,  rest  the 
graves  of  the  poet  and  his  wife,  who 
lived  until  1850.  In  prominent  sight 
on  his  simple  column  are  the  words, 
*'A  Poet's  Grave,"  while  beneath  is  a 
simple,  fitting  dedication, — ''His  up- 
right and  honest  character  is  in  the 
memory  of  many  and  will  remain 
when  this  inscription  is  no  longer 
visible, — 

*'  'Heaven  lifts  its  everlasting  portal  high, 

And  bids  the  pure  in  heart  behold  their 

God.' " 

Mount   Pleasant,  now   Freneau,   is 

about  a  mile  from  Matawan.    With 

its  few  scattered  houses,  its  village 

433 

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PHILIP    FRENEAU:    AMERICA'S    FIRST    POET. 


store,  its  tavern  and  smithy,  it  has 
changed  little  since  the  days  of  Fre- 
neau.  Confronted  by  disappointment 
and  rebuffs,  he  was  yet  happy  in  his 
rural  home.  His  was  a  poet's  nature, 
often  unpractical,  somewhat  philo- 
s6phical.  Dr.  Francis,  in  his  pen-por- 
trait of  his  friend  for  Duyckinck's 
Cyclopaedia,  recalled  his  simplicity 
and  kindliness,  adding, — "His  habit- 
ual expression  was  pensive."  Among 
many  New  Years'  Addresses,  written 
as  was  the  custom  of  the  times,  for 
Philadelphia  carriers,  is  one  with  a 
cheery  finale, — typical  of  the  poet  in 
his  best  mood, — 

"Let  seasons  vary  as  they  will, 
Contentment  leaves  us  happy  still, 
Makes    life's    vain    dream    pass    smooth 

away, 
And  Life  itself  A  New  Year's  Day." 

There  is  something  very  winsome 
about  the  personality  of  this  elder 
poet.  His  stanzas  are  vital  with 
hopeful  messages  of  nature  and  sane 
living.  Nor  is  he  so  far  removed 
from  our  own  time  as  one  might  sur- 
mise. When  he  died,  Irving,  almost 
fifty  years  old,  and  his  Knicker- 
bocker associates  had  accomplished 
their  typical  work.  Emerson  was 
twenty-nine  and  had  startled  the 
world  with  a  new  note  of  prophecy. 
Longfellow  and  Whittier  had  written 
their  tentative  messages  and  Bryant 
was  in  the  full  maturity  of  his  genius. 
During  the  later  years  of  Freneau's 
life  there  slowly  awakened  an  interest 
in  native  themes  and  incipient  en- 
couragement to  American  writers.  To 
claim  that  Philip  Freneau  was  the 
most  gifted  poet  of  our  literature, 
prior  to  the  nineteenth  century,  is  no 
extravagance,  for  previous  attempts 
were,  in  the  main,  crude  imitations  of 


Pope  and  Gray.  The  true  distinction 
that  he  merits  is  that  of  being^  the 
first  poet  of  local  and  indigenous 
themes,  with  a  fearlessness  of  touch 
and  artistic  suggestion  that  gave  in- 
centive to  many  a  later  author.  He 
often  used  trite  imagery,  but  there 
were  also  original  fancies  and  unhack- 
neyed themes.  The  atmosphere  of 
America  at  the  meeting  of  the  cen- 
turies was  well  ponrayed.  Not  infre- 
quently the  reader  of  his  poems  is 
impressed  by  hints  of  later,  more 
familiar  stanzas  on  native  themes, 
possibly  suggested  by  this  pioneer 
poet  whose  work  was  often  read  and 
quoted  by  our  grandfathers. 

Freneau 's  poems  evidence  the 
paradoxical  temperament  which  was 
his,  mingling  playfulness  with  intense 
zeal,  aflfability  with  rancour,  delight 
in  beauty  and  fancy  with  vital  inter- 
est in  affairs.  Few  poets  of  any 
country  have  had  a  life-history  with 
more  vicissitudes;  through  national 
and  personal  conflicts  he  kept  untar- 
nished his  character  and  undimmed 
his  poetic  impulse.  If  this  was  lavishly 
expended  in  response  to  careless 
caprice  or  political  purpose,  he  never 
lost  his  reverence  for  the  nobler 
ideals  of  truth  and  art.  His  most  fin- 
ished satires  showed  study  of  the 
Latin  and  English  satirists.  His  lyr- 
ies  and  odes  of  greatest  value  wei'e 
adaptations,  rather  than  imitations, 
of  Gray  and  Cowper,  with  unmistak- 
able traces  of  original  genius,  which 
won  praise  from  his  English  contem- 
poraries, who  were  scarcely  eager  to 
acknowledge  real  merit  in  American 
letters.  Though  retaining  marked 
traits  of  French  parentage  to  the  last, 
Freneau  was  a  thorough  American, 


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Grave  of  Philip  Freneau 


a  true  democrat,  sharing  heartily  in 
his  country's  struggles  and  victories. 
Closely  identified  with  national  his- 
tory and  letters  for  more  than  half  a 
century,  his  life  and  writings  suffered 
too  long  the  neglect  which  is  often  a 
reproach     to    our    patriotism.     One 


would  not  claim  undue  or  sentimental 
exaltation  for  this  pioneer  poet,  but 
a  fitting  knowledge  of  his  life  and 
service,  proclaimed  in  the  revival  of 
interest  in  his  name,  is  only  the  pay- 
ment of  a  long-standing  debt  of 
honor. 


The  Women  of  the  Grant  Family 


By  Olive  Lee 


IN  the  fall  of  this  year,  there  ap- 
peared   in    the    newspapers    an 
announcement  that  appealed  ir- 
resistibly   to     the     imagination 
and  the  love  of  romance  of  the  Amer- 
ican people.    It  was  to  the  effect  that 


a  granddaughter  of  General  U.  S. 
Grant  was  to  marry  the  son  of  a  Con- 
federate general!  Later,  however, 
the  engagement  was  denied,  much  to 
the  disappointment  of  many  good  peo- 
ple, who  had  hailed  with  delight  the 

435 

.Google 


Digitized  by ' 


Miss  Rosemary  Sartoris 

436  '      [      \       ' 

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THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  GRANT  FAMILY. 


437 


idea  of  such  a  union  of  the  blue  and 
gray. 

The  young  man  who  has  been 
spoken  of  as  the  prospective  hus- 
band of  Miss  Rosemary  Sartoris  is 
Lieut.  John  A.  Wright,  U.  S.  A.,  a 
son  of  the  brave  General  Marcus  J. 
Wright,  who  so  often  fought  against 
General  Grant  in  battles  of  the  Civil 
War.  Lieutenant  Wright  served  in 
the  Spanish  War,  acquitting  himself 
so  nobly  that  he  is  now  an  officer  in 
the  famous  Fifth  Infantry. 

There  would  be  something  of  what 
we  call  the  **irony  of  fate"  in  this  mar- 
riage— if  marriage  should  take  place 
— for  by  it,  Miss  Rosemary  Sartoris 
would  become  an  Amercian  citizen. 
As  is  well  known,  the  children  of 
Nellie  Grant  Sartoris  were  born  under 
the  British  flag.  About  a  year  ago, 
Miss  Vivian  Sartoris  became  an 
American  citizen  by  virtue  of  her 
marriage  to  Roosevelt  Scovel,  a  cousin 
of  the  President,  and  her  brother,  Al- 
gernon Sartoris,  was  naturalized  and 
fought  in  the  Spanish  War  as  well  as 
in  the  Philippines. 

The  widespread  interest  aroused  by 
the  announcement  of  Miss  Sartoris's 
engagement  is  indicative  of  the  peren- 
nial charm  that  attaches  to  all  mem- 
bers of  the  Grant  family, — especially 
its  feminine  members.  The  marriage 
of  Nellie  Grant,  the  "Daughter  of  the 
Nation,"  to  the  man  who  afterward 
proved  so  unworthy  of  her ;  the  wed- 
ding, years  later,  of  the  brilliant  Julia 
Dent  Grant  to  Prince  Cantacuzene; 
the  death,  December  14,  1902,  of  the 
beloved  widow  of  the  famous  general ; 
these  and  other  incidents  relating  to 
the  women  of  the  Grant  family  have 
evoked  the  keen  or  sympathetic  inter- 
est of  the  American  people. 


It  was  while  Ulysses  S.  Grant  -was 
a  young  lieutenant  stationed  at  St. 
Louis  that  he  met  Miss  Julia  Dent, 
his  future  wife,  who  had  just  com- 
pleted her  education  at  a  boarding 
school.  She,  too,  had  the  blood  of  a 
soldier  in  her  veins,  being  the  grand- 
daughter of  Captain  George  Dent. 
They  took  ample  time  to  test  the 
reality  of  their  mutual  affection,  for 
it  was  after  an  engagement  of  five 
years  that  they  were  married,  August 
22,  1848.  It  is  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge  that  their  married  life,  al- 
though with  its  full  measure  of  trial, 
was  most  happy.  Mrs.  Grant  was  a 
devoted  wife,  and  during  the  terrible 
days  of  the  Civil  War  she  was  at  her 
husband's  side  whenever  practicable. 
If  there  were  times  when  others  were 
skeptical  of  her  husband's  ability,  Mrs. 
Grant  never  doubted  it  for  an  instant. 
From  the  first  to  the  last,  she  felt  in 
him  a  profound  and  beautiful  faith, 
which  she  lived  to  see  amply  justi- 
fied. 

Mrs.  Grant  was  never  what  would 
be  called  a  society  woman,  being 
quiet  and  domestic  in  her  tastes;  but 
during  the  eight  years  she  spent  at 
the  White  House,  she  worthily  sus- 
tained the  part  of  First  Lady  in  the 
Land.  Under  the  Grant  regime,  the 
Executive  Mansion  was  elegantly  re- 
furnished and  magnificent  entertain- 
ments were  the  rule,  rather  than  the 
exception. 

Mrs.  Grant  accompanied  her  hus- 
band in  his  famous  tour  around  the 
world,  which  was  in  the  nature  of  a 
triumph  for  both;  the  wife  sharing 
fully  in  the  adulation  that  was  poured 
upon  her  distinguished  husband  by 
royalty  and  peasantry  alike. 
The  death  of  General  Grant  was  a 

Jigitized  by  LjOOQIC 


Mrs.  Ulysses  S.  Grant 


terrible  blow  to  his  faithful  wife ;  yet 
undoubtedly  the  spontaneous  expres- 
sion of  sorrow  from  the  whole  nation 
at  the  passing  of  its  favorite  hero,  and 
its  sympathy  for  the  bereaved  widow, 
helped  to  lighten  her  burden  of  grief. 
And  it  was  universally  regarded  as 
no  more  than  just  that  Congress 
should  show  its  appreciation  of  a 
former  President  and  a  great  general 
438 


by  conferring  upon  his  widow  an  an- 
nual pension  of  five  thousand  dollars. 

Mrs.  Grant  died  at  her  Washington 
residence  December  14,  1902,  of  heart 
failure.  She  had  suffered  for  some 
years  from  valvular  disease  of  the 
heart,  which  was  aggravated  by  a  se- 
vere attack  of  bronchitis. 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  traits  in 
Mrs.  Grant's  character  was  exhibited 


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Mrs.  Nellie  Grant  Sartoris 


in  her  attachment  to  an  old  slave, 
owned  by  the  Dent  family,  named 
Mary  Henry,  who  had  been  both  the 
playmate  of  her  childhood  and  her 
children's  nurse.  In  the  lapse  of 
years  and  throughout  the  changes 
time  had  brought,  Mrs.  Grant  never 
lost  her  affectionate  interest  in  this 
faithful  old  slave, — to  whom  she  was 


always  "  Miss  Julia,'*  —  displaying  it 
openly  on  many  occasions  before 
friends  and  before  leaders  of  fashion- 
able society;  and  it  mattered  not  in 
what  part  of  the  world  she  chanced 
to  be,  she  continually  sent  her  gifts 
and  letters. 

It   is   perhaps   about   twenty-eight 
years  or  more  ago  that  Nellie  Grant, 


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440 


THH    WOMEN    OF    THE    GRANT    FAMILY 


the  first  girl  ever  married  from  the 
White  House,  and  her  father's  pet, 
went  to  her  English  home.  Simple, 
amiable,  and  unaffected,  Nellie  Grant 
had  endeared  herself  to  the  American 
people,  and  though  they  would  per- 
haps have  preferred  that  her  choice 
of  a  husband  be  one  of  her  own  coun- 
trymen, the  heartiest  of  good  wishes 
followed  upon  her  marriage  to  Alger- 
non Sartoris. 

In  England,  she  won  hearts  as 
easily  as  she  had  done  at  home,  the 
best  and  most  illustrious  people  being 
among  her  friends.  On  her  arrival 
in  London,  she  was  received  by  the 
Queen  and  dined  at  Windsor  Castle. 

But  her  married  life  proved  un- 
happy, and  in  time  she  separated  from 
her  husband.  His  unjust  treatment 
of  her,  although  it  called  from  her  no 
open  complaint,  had  aroused  the  in- 
dignation of  her  father-in-law,  a 
noble  old  English  gentleman,  who 
tried  to  straighten  matters  out. 
Failing  in  this,  he  most  generously 
gave  her  a  small  London  house  in 
Cadogan  Place,  forced  his  son  to  give 
her  a  country  place  near  Hampton, 
and  settled  on  her  an  income  of  sev- 
enty-five hundred  pounds  a  year. 
I'pon  his  death  in  1890,  he  left  her 
thirty-five  thousand  dollars  a  year 
and  the  town  house  in  which  she  lived 
after  separating  from  her  husband. 

Upon  the  latter 's  death  in  1893, 
Mrs.  Sartoris  received  the  principal 
of  his  income  as  guardian  of  her  chil- 
dren, and  the  lease  of  the  country 
house.  This,  in  addition  to  the  town 
house,  and  her  thirty-five  thousand 
dollar  income,  placed  her  and  her  chil- 
dren in  independent  circumstances, 
and  enabled  her  to  live  and  entertain 
in  a  manner  befitting  her  station. 


Mrs.  Sartoris's  home  is  well  re- 
membered in  England  for  its  charm, 
and  its  atmosphere  of  delightful  hos- 
pitality. At  her  quiet  little  dinners, 
one  was  always  sure  to  meet  the  best 
people,  among  whom  were  many 
Americans.  She  has  been  an  ideal 
mother,  and  in  the  midst  of  exacting 
social  duties,  devoted  much  time  to 
the  care  and  education  of  her  three 
attractive  children.  She  also  found 
time  for  much  reading  and  travelling, 
and  has  always  manifested  an  especial 
interest  in  art. 

Of  late  years,  Mrs.  Sartoris  has 
lived  in  America,  making  her  home 
with  her  mother  up  to  the  time  of  the 
latter's  death.  In  the  summer  of 
1901,  she  purchased  the  magnificent 
residence  at  Coburg,  Ont.,  of  Miss 
Allan,  daughter  of  the  late  Sir  Hugh 
Allan,  founder  of  the  Allan  Line  of 
steamships,  which  has  since  been  the 
summer  home  of  the  family.  Her 
winter  home  is  in  Washington. 

The  daughters  of  Mrs.  Sartoris 
have  fallen  heir  to  much  of  that  devo- 
tion that  was  once  lavished  on  the 
"Daughter  of  the  Nation."  Both  are 
accounted  extremely  pretty  and 
charming  girls,  and  wherever  they 
have  appeared,  whether  in  the  capitals 
of  Europe  or  in  Washington  society, 
they  have  received  their  due  meed  of 
admiration.  In  Washington,  as  might 
be  expected,  their  social  popularity 
has  been  enormous. 

Mrs.  Roosevelt  Scovel,  the  bride  of 
a  year  or  more,  formerly  Miss  Vivian 
Sartoris,  has  inherited  from  her 
Kemble  ancestors  —  her  paternal 
grandmother  was  a  daughter  of 
Charles  KemblC  and  a  sister  of  Fanny 
Kemble — a  decided  dramatic  talent, 
which    would    without    doubt    have 


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Princess  Cantacuzene  (born  Julia  Grant) 


made  her  a  successful  actress.  It  is 
to  be  feared  that  she  has  been  a  bit 
of  a  flirt,  and  has  broken  many  hearts. 
At  all  events,  she  has  been  reported 
engaged  three  or  four  different  times, 
—  once  to  Mr.  Arthur  Balfour,  a 
member  of  the  famous  English  family, 
and  at  two  different  times  to  Mr. 
Morton  Nichols,  son  of  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Gihnan  Nichols  of  New  York.     In 


August,  1902,  she  was  married  in  St. 
Peter's  Church,  Coburg,  Ont.,  to 
Frederick  Roosevelt  Scovel,  son  of 
Chevalier  and  Mme.  Edward  Scovel. 
There  is  another  daughter  of  the 
Grant  family  who  has  a  warm  place 
in  the  affections  of  the  American 
people, — the  Princess  Cantacuzene, 
formerly  Miss  Julia  Dent  Grant,  the 
daughter  of  General  Fred  D.  Grant. 


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THE   REVIVAL   OF    FIRESIDE   INDUSTRIES 


Nobody  will  deny  that  the  Princess 
Cantacuzene  has  been  a  very  fortunate 
young  woman.  Born  the  grand- 
daughter of  America's  most  famous 
general,  endowed  with  beauty,  ele- 
gance, wit,  and  charm,  she  had  for 
her  maternal  aunt,  Mrs.  Potter 
Palmei:  of  Chicago,  a  woman  not  only 
extremely  wealthy,  but  of  national 
distinction  for  her  brilliant  person- 
ality and  social  leadership.  Mrs. 
Palmer  undertook  the  chaperonage  of 
her  handsome  niece.  In  Chicago,  in 
New  York,  and  finally  at  Newport, 
Miss  Grant  won  social  success  enough 
to  turn  the  head  of  any  girl.  In  com- 
pany with  her  aunt,  she  travelled  in 
Europe,  where  she  was  much  admired. 
It  was  said  that  among  her  lovers 
were  scions  of  royalty,  including  Vic- 
tor Emmanuel,  Prince  of  Turin  and 
nephew  to  the  King  of  Italy,  and 
Prince    Albert    of    Flanders.      Miss 


Grant  met  Prince  Cantacuzene  ai 
Rome,  he  being  then  the  military  at- 
tache of  the  Russian  Embassy.  He 
fell  instantly  in  love  with  her,  and 
when  Miss  Grant  left  with  Ker  aunt 
for  Cannes,  he  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  special  leave  of  absence  from  his 
duties  in  Rome,  to  follow  the  young 
American  girl  to  that  place.  Three 
months  later,  General  Fred  D.  Grant 
announced  the  engagement  of  his 
daughter  and  Prince  Michael  Canta- 
cuzene, Count  Speransky,  of  the  Rus- 
sian Imperial  Guard. 

The  wedding  occurred  with  much 
eclat  at  the  Newport  villa  of  Mrs. 
Palmer  in  the  fall  of  1899.  The  mar- 
riage has  proved  exceptionally  happy, 
and  General  Grant  is  the  grandfather 
of  a  healthy  young  Russian  nobleman. 
Since  her  marriage  the  Princess  Can- 
tacuzene has  lived  in  great  splendor 
and  state  at  St.  Petersburg. 


The  Revival  of  Fireside  Industries 


By  Katherine  Louise  Smith 


TO  make  beautiful  things  as 
well  as  one  can,  to  combine 
the  partnership  of  brain  and 
hand  in  producing  some- 
thing useful,  is  greatly  to  be  desired, 
for  the  putting  of  one's  heart  and 
hand  into  the  work  is  more  than  the 
owning  of  it.  In  things  made  by 
hand  there  is  no  duplicate,  and  there 
is  a  quality  of  sentiment  attached  to 
the  making  that  no  inanimate  ma- 
chine can  ever  emulate.  The  mad 
rage  of  manufacturers  in  America  to 


make  things  cheap  has  resulted  in  a 
quantity  of  ill-made,  inartistic  work, 
without  regard  to  the  tastes  of  the 
cultivated,  who  want  things  substan- 
tial, beautiful  and  unique,  and  are 
willing  to  pay  the  price. 

That  great  man,  William  Morris, 
felt  this  keenly.  He  was  master  of 
six  different  trades.  Frank,  bold, 
and  dressed  as  a  workingman,  he 
gloried  in  doing  things  with  his 
hands.  To  carve  in  wood,  weave 
bright  strands  of  silk  into  cloth,  use  a 


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THE   REVIVAL   OF   FIRESIDE   INDUSTRIES 


443 


hammer,  were  things  that  were  to 
him  a  joy  forever,  and  his  motto  was 
*not  how  cheap  but  how  good." 

A  slight  revival  of  this  spirit  can 
be  found  in  our  own  country  and  the 
new  century  has  come  in  with  an  ap- 
preciation of  the  artist-artisan  spirit 
which  shows  its  influence  in  many 
directions.  In  almost  every  com- 
munity lie  germs  of  profitable  crafts 
if  directed  aright,  and  in  many  of  the 
rural  districts  of  our  country  are  half- 
buried  industries  only  waiting  for  en- 
couragement and  a  market  to  become 
a  profitable  employment  to  villagers. 
Much  of  the  tawdriness  and  sham 
that  now  prevails  in  our  house 
furnishings  could  be  done  away  with 
in  the  encouragement  of  these  in- 
dustries, and  a  trained  designer  with 
rural  workers  could  be  certain  of 
gaining  patronage.  The  philanthropic 
side  appeals  to  one,  for  the  rural  in- 
dustries would  prevent  the  exodus  of 
village  boys  and  girls  to  the  already 
overcrowded  cities  in  the  search  for 
employment. 

Probably  the  most  conspicuous  ex- 
ample of  the  encouragement  of  hand- 
made industries  in  our  country  is  the 
Roycroft  experiment  at  East  Aurora, 
N.  Y.  Elbert  Hubbard,  the  presiding 
genius  of  the  place,  and  his  unique 
theories  have  become  familiar  to  the 
public  through  the  medium  of  the 
press  and  lecture  platform.  While 
the  making  of  books  of  a  solid  and 
artistic  kind  is  the  chief  industry  of 
the  Roycroft  shop,  the  work  of  mak- 
ing beautiful  things  has  broadened, 
and  now  they  not  only  print,  illumine, 
and  bind  books,  but  they  produce  ar- 
tistic pieces  of  furniture  and  beautiful 
things  in  iron  which  have  absorbed 


in  their  making  something  of  the 
spirit  of  sweetness  and  light  to  be  al- 
ways found  in  work  that  is  done  from 
love  instead  of  compulsion. 

The  workers  in  the  Roycroft  shops 
are  all  ages  and  there  are  a  few 
"girls"  who  are  **seventy  years 
young"  who  make  the  old-fashioned 
rag  carpets  in  rugs  three  yards  long. 
These  find  a  ready  sale  as  do  the 
wrought-iron  fire  dogs  made  by  the 
blacksmith  and  the  massive  tables 
made  by  the  Roycroft  cabinet  maker. 
By  encouragement  of  these  fireside 
industries  it  has  been  possible  for 
various  persons  to  work  out  their 
genius  fully  both  for  the  profit  to 
themselves  and  the  good  to  the  com- 
munity. 

The  old  and  dignified  craft  of 
book-binding  is  not  alone  revived  at 
East  Aurora,  but  in  other  places  in 
our  country  women  show  especial 
aptitude  for  the  craft  where  lightness 
of  touch  is  essential.  Soon  book- 
binding will  have  its  trained  teachers 
and  workshops  in  every  city  in  our 
land,  though  at  present  the  best  in- 
struction is  to  be  obtained  abroad. 
Mr.  Cobden-Sanderson  of  London, 
who  is  credited  with  doing  the  most 
beautiful  book-binding  in  the  world, 
has  taught  various  persons  on  this 
side,  among  them  Miss  Ellen  G.  Starr 
of  Hull  House,  Chicago.  There  is 
a  fascination  in  this  work  which  ap- 
peals both  to  the  worker  and  pur- 
chaser. Often  a  devoted  admirer  of 
a  certain  author  will  buy  a  particular 
edition  and  bring  the  work  to  the 
bindery  for  a  complete  change  of 
dress,  and  the  artistic  and  utilitarian 
value  of  this  hand-made  binding 
makes  it  particularly  useful  in  pre- 


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Indian  Hut  in  Region  where  Lace  is  Made 


serving   for   future  generations  such 
heirlooms  as  old  letters  and  prints. 

The  revival  of  decorated  leather 
work  has  also  opened  an  exceptional 
opportunity  for  artistic  activity.  The 
late  Evelyn  Nordhoff  was  a  pioneer 
among  leather  workers  and  the  revi- 
val of  the  old  process  of  Spanish  tool- 
ing and  illuminating  has  been  satis- 
factorily accomplished  by  a  number 
of  women  who  have  thus  created  a 
market  for  the  thing  they  were  best 
fitted  to  do.  Such  opportunities  are 
being  gladly  embraced  from  Maine  to 
California,  where  leather  applique 
has  reached  a  wonderful  perfection. 
The  old  leathers  of  Spain  and  the 
Orient  are  studied  by  those  who  de- 
sire to  do  good  work.  Charming 
pillows  both  in  technique  and  design 
are  executed  by  persons  who  have 
made   a   success   of   this   work,   and 

444 


where  proper  conservatism  in  color  is 
not  lost  in  the  strife  for  temporary 
effect,  these  and  kindred  household 
ornaments  are  invaluable,  for  the  ex- 
cellence of  the  material  guarantees 
their  durability. 

There  are  simpler  branches  of  fire- 
side art  that  appeal  to  the  art  worker. 
In  Deerfield,  Massachusetts,  two 
women,  Mrs.  Margaret  Whiting  and 
Miss  Ellen  Miller,  have  revived  a  vil- 
lage art  industry  that  furnishes  ample 
employment  to  many  women.  The 
Deerfield  Society  of  Blue  and  White 
Needlework  has  for  its  aim  the  re- 
vival of  the  linen  embroidery  of  the 
last  century,  which,  in  the  hands  of 
New  England  women,  reached  an 
unique  stage  of  development  just  be- 
fore the  Revolution.  Relics  of  this 
time  which  are  stored  in  the  Deer- 
field   Memorial    Hall,    half-forgotten 


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THE   REVIVAL   OF    FIRESIDE   INDUSTRIES 


445 


pockets,  bags,  curtains,  coverlets  and 
baby  clothes,  are  copied  with  exact 
faithfulness  to  the  original.  The 
designs  are  exceedingly  interesting 
and  are  treated  with  New  England 
directness  and  fearlessness  that  ma- 
chinery cannot  effect. 

The  revival  of  this  work,  which  is 
in  direct  line  with  the  Ruskin  idea  of 
village  industries,  is  gladly  welcomed 
by  those  who  desire  needlework  of 
genuine  merit  and  the  careful  work- 
manship of  the  days  when  spinning 
wheels,  looms  and  indigo  tubs  were 
supreme.  Each  piece  that  leaves  the 
society  is  reproduced  with  a  faithful- 
ness to  the  original  that  would  not 
shame  the  colonial  dame  who  first 
wrought  it,  and  every  article  bears  the 
seal,  a  spinning  wheel  with  a  "D"  in 
the  centre,  signifying  the  flax  ma- 
terial employed  and  the  village  where 
its  use  is  revived.  This  serves  both 
as  a  protection  under  the  law  and  as  a 
seal  of  approval  of  the  work.  All  the 
blue  and  madder  threads  used  by  the 
society  are  dyed  by  Deerfield  women 
in  the  old-fashioned  way,  and  the 
novelty  of  the  work  is  refreshing  to 
one  who  is  tired  of  the  conventional 
embroidery  and  longs  for  individuality. 

This  is  not  a  philanthropy  but  is 
carried  on  with  strict  business 
methods,  and  the  leaders  feel  they 
have  every  prospect  of  a  permanent 
success  in  the  interest  evinced  in  their 
endeavors  to  keep  as  close  as  possible 
to  the  spirit  of  the  colonial  needle- 
women. Many  a  family  history  is 
embroidered  in  a  bunch  of  flowers, 
and  originality  in  designs  frequently 
leads  to  interesting  comparisons  be- 
tween the  work  of  women  in  differ- 
ent parts  of  New  England. 


From  the  handiwork  of  the  col- 
onial women  to  that  of  Indians  in  the 
northern  wilds  of  our  country  seems 
a  far  cry,  yet  Miss  Sybil  Carter  has 
demonstrated  that  lace  can  be  made 
profitably  in  Minnesota  by  Indian 
women.  A  woman  of  enthusiasm 
and  perseverance.  Miss  Carter,  who 
was  interested  in  missionary  work 
among  the  red  men,  determined  that 
something  of  sweetness  and  light 
should  enter  into  the  isolated  lives  of 
the  women.  With  this  end  in  view 
she  studied  the  laces  of  the  Japanese 
women,  learned  the  different  patterns 
and  opened  a  school  in  the  Northern 
pineries  where  the  Indian  women 
might  be  taught  to  make  the  various 
kinds  of  lace,  honiton,  battenburg, 
etc.,  which  might  prove  a  source  of 
income  to  them. 

So  successful  has  this  venture  been, 
under  almost  insuperable  difficulties, 
that  several  schools  have  been  opened, 
a  number  of  teachers  employed,  and 
the  Indian  women  walk  long  dis- 
tances to  get  the  patterns  and  earn 
the  wherewithal  to  supply  coveted 
luxuries  and  in  many  cases  dire  ne- 
cessities. Here  in  their  typical  Ind- 
ian wigwams  are  made  the  exquisite 
lace  lampshades  with  intricate  pat- 
terns, disclosing  Indian  canoes  and 
war  emblems  that  attracted  attention 
at  the  Paris  World's  Fair  and  the 
Pan-American  Exposition.  The  fame 
of  this  lace  has  crossed  the  water  and 
large  orders  have  been  filled  for 
Honolulu.  Mrs.  Bayard  Cutting  and 
other  wealthy  women,  together  with 
various  societies  in  the  East,  are  in- 
terested  in  this  work,  which  sells  for 
large  sums,  many  bedspreads  being 
valued  at  two  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 


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THE   REVIVAL   OF    FIRESIDE   INDUSTRIES 


447 


lars.  Many  of  these  laces  are  made 
by  young  Indian  women,  but  much 
is  designed  and  executed  by  aged 
squaws  who  delight  in  exercising  the 
ingenuity  they  formerly  expended  on 
bead  work. 

This  and  the  revival  of  basketry 
in  Government  schools  ought  to  fur- 
nish the  Indian  with  a  natural  and 
congenial  source  of  self-support. 
The  old  and  artistic  weaves  in  bas- 
ketry cannot  be  surpassed  and  are 
fast  becoming  priceless.  A  Pomo 
basket  recently  was  purchased  by  a 
museum  for  eight  hundred  dollars. 
Efforts  are  being  made  in  the  South 
to  direct  the  negro  along  this  same 
line,  and  all  that  is  needed  is  sym- 
pathetic direction  to  push  these  art 
crafts  to  the  front.  Our  Government 
has  already  started  this  in  following 
the  example  of  Persia  and  forbidding 
the  use  of  aniline  dyes.  The  Indians 
are  expert  workers  in  leather  and  bead 
work,  and  each  article  purchased 
encourages  the  worker  to  produce 
another.  One  club  of  Indian  women 
in  Maine  pay  their  yearly  dues  to  the 
State  Federation  in  baskets,  and  one 
enthusiast  versed  in  the  lore  of  Indian 
crafts  could  do  much  to  turn  the  tide 
of  public  purchase  in  the  direction  of 
the  fireside  arts  of  the  original  inhabi- 
tants of  our  country. 

A  wide  outlet  has  been  found  for 
unemployed  energy  in  the  efforts  to 
revive  the  art  of  weaving,  one  of  the 
most  indispensable,  and  covering  a 
vast  fields  of  usefulness.  There  are 
certain  art  qualities  in  this  domestic 
industry  which  are  impossible  in 
machine  manufactures,  and  the  en- 
couragement of  artistic,  hand-woven 
textiles  has  an  effect  not  only  on  the 


happiness  of  the  individual  but  on  the 
commercial  advancement  of  com- 
munities. 

In  the  districts  between  the  blue 
grass  region  of  Kentucky  and  the 
Appalachian  Mountains,  an  effort  has 
been  made  to  restore  the  hand  weav- 
ing which  once  prevailed  among  these 
shut-in  communities.  The  work  is 
suggestive  of  the  history  of  these 
mountain  dwellers  whose  stories  read 
like  romance.  Descendants  of  Vir- 
g^ians  who  emigrated  in  the  early 
days,  these  mountain  people  are  still 
living  in  colonial  times.  This  is  the 
land  where  dwells  the  mysterious 
"moonshiner"  and  whose  farmers 
"swap"  their  produce  at  the  country 
store  for  the  necessary  coffee,  boots 
and  patent  medicine.  An  important 
adjunct  to  every  typical  home  is  the 
loom  house,  and  in  these  for  over  a 
hundred  years  have  been  produced 
"kivers"  or  coverlets  whose  texture 
and  colors  defy  the  ravages  of  time. 
Indeed,  one  peculiar  fact  of  these 
handmade  bedspreads  is  that  time  en- 
hances their  value,  for  it  mellows  the 
dyes  and  gives  a  soft,  warm  tone  to 
the  various  colors.  Berea  College, 
Kentucky,  claims  to  be  the  discoverer 
of  these  mountain  people,  and  it  aims 
to  assist  the  women  to  obtain  enough 
flax  to  spin  the  thread  during  the  long 
winter  months  into  linen,  linsey  and 
counterpanes.  All  the  fireside  indus- 
tries are  encouraged  as  a  means  of 
earning  money  for  education,  and  it  is 
pathetic  to  see  the  joy  of  these  beau- 
tiful, sun-bonneted  women  when  they 
are  able  to  dispose  of  their  weaving, 
for  the  revival  of  this  industry  has  en- 
abled many  a  silent  loom  to  start 
again. 


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THE    REVIVAL   OF    FIRESIDE   INDUSTRIES 


As  frequently  these  women  have  to 
go  on  mule  back  twenty  miles  to  ob- 
tain a  piece  of  mechanism  to  repair 
the  loom — for  railroads  in  this  region 
are  few  and  far  between — a  house  has 
been  opened  at  the  college  in  which 
are  looms  and  wheels  to  carry  on  the 
manufacture,  and  coverlets  are  kept 
on  hand — a  collection  that  exists  no- 
where else  in  the  world.  Cotton  and 
wool  blankets  are  also  woven.  The 
"kivers"  are  usually  seven  and  one- 
half  feet  in  length,  and  average 
seven  dollars  and  a  half  apiece. 
When  they  are  woven  so  they  *'hit" 
in  the  seam  and  the  colors  are  ju- 
diciously selected,  there  is  nothing 
more  durable  for  bedspreads,  por- 
tieres and  couch  draperies. 

A  similar  effort  to  encourage  home 
weaving  has  been  made  in  North 
Carolina  and  Georgia,  where  the 
primitive  people  whose  ignorance  and 
prejudice  have  hindered  them  are  at 
last  finding  an  outlet  for  the  fruitless 
energy  that  has  thriven  all  these 
years.  Such  is  the  case  in  the  coun- 
try surrounding  Rome,  Georgia,  where 
every  house  is  supplied  with  a  spin- 
ning wheel  and  an  old-fashioned  hand 
loom.  Mrs.  Lindsey  Johnson,  presi- 
dent of  the  Georgia  Federation  of 
Women's  Clubs,  succeeded  in  bring- 
ing one  mountain  woman  and  a  hand- 
made loom  to  the  International  Ex- 
position held  in  Atlanta  in  1896,  a 
difficult  task,  for  these  women  seldom 
leave  their  homes.  Thousands  of 
people  saw  the  work,  became  inter- 
ested and  left  orders,  and  another  fair 
in  Atlanta  in  1900  showed  a  beautiful 
exhibit  of  coverlets  of  various  designs 
and  colors,  towels,  draperies  and  simi- 
lar   products.     The    blue    and    white 


cotton  is  particularly  popular  for  sea- 
side cottages,  as  it  retains  its  body  in 
spite  of  salt  air  and  dampness.  Gray 
linen  suitable  for  embroidery  pur- 
poses, and  silk  draperies  are  also 
woven,  success  with  the  latter  being 
chiefly  from  the  fact  that  the  moun- 
tain women  weave  for  ten  cents  a 
yard  what  in  New  York  costs  many 
times  that  amount. 

One  must  know  the  home-life  of 
these  people  to  know  what  the  ready 
cash  means  to  them,  and  how  eagerly 
they  will  make  for  a  small  sum  the 
hand-made  hats  and  baskets  in  which 
com  stalks,  pine  needles  and  straw 
are  used.  Of  course  the  rag  carpets 
are  among  the  products  of  these 
mountain  craftswomen,  but  they  need 
instruction  in  color  combination  to 
make  their  strips  equal  to  those  sold 
by  the  Roycrofters.  These  indus- 
tries, either  indigenous  or  adapted  to 
some  section  of  our  country,  when  put 
on  the  market  through  the  powerful 
encouragement  of  clubs,  art  and  craft 
societies,  or  influential  persons,  can  be 
made  both  profitable  and  popular. 

A  fireside  industry  that  is  steadily 
increasing  in  proportions  is  flourish- 
ing in  the  vicinity  of  Pequaket,  N.  H. 
Fate  that  was  kindly  to  the  natives 
put  Mrs.  Helen  R.  Albee  in  this  re- 
gion. Possessed  of  a  keen  artistic 
sense  and  practical  ideas  of  helping 
one's  fellow-beings,  she  was  inspired 
with  the  idea  of  bettering  the  condi- 
tions of  the  women  in  that  remote 
mountain  district.  In  the  common 
hooked  rug,  executed  in  ugly  patterns 
and  crude  colors,  Mrs.  Albee  saw  la- 
tent possibilities  which  have  de- 
veloped under  her  instruction  into 
things  of  beauty.     New,  all-wool  ma- 


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THE   REVIVAL   OF    FIRESIDE   INDUSTRIES 


449 


terial  was  dyed  in  the  neutral  Oriental 
tones,  original  designs  were  fur- 
nished, and  after  a  short  experimen- 
tal period  the  result  was  a  complete 
rrtetaniorphosis  of  the  hooked  rug. 

The  beauty  and  utility  of  these 
rugs,  for  they  are  as  soft  as  silk, 
with  a  velvety  sheen,  is  varied  by  the 
different  designs  in  which  they  are 
woven.  Often  crests  and  coats  of 
arms  are  executed  upon  hall-rugs 
and  charming  jewel  effects  decorate 
the  borders  of  chair  covers  and  por- 
tieres. The  fame  of  this  Anakee 
i*ug  has  spread  abroad,  and  as  a  re- 
sult four  other  smiliar  industries  have 
been  started  and  other  communities 
have  applied  for  a  teacher.  Many  of 
these  rugs,  which  are  veritable  joys 
forever,  have  been  seen  in  the  vari- 
ous art  and  craft  exhibits,  and  they 
formed  an  attractive  feature  at  the 
Pan-American  Exposition. 

Many  social  settlements  in  our 
cities  have  adopted  rug  weaving  as  a 
form  of  profitable  employment  for  the 
women.  The  women  are  given  light 
pine  frames  and  the  yam  or  rags  are 
woven  in  patterns  suggested  by  the 
teacher.  Sometimes  ravellings  from 
old  knitted  garments  are  utilized  and 
from  them  rugs  are  woven  in  Navajo 
designs.  One  settlement  makes  a 
specialty  of  carriage  rugs  for  babies. 
Never  before  has  there  been  such  a 
tendency  to  make  art  a  part  of  our 
daily  life,  and  to  draw  from  the  sim- 
plest individuals  some  product  of  the 
hand  inspired  by  the  inventive  mind. 
The  artistic  and  creative  power  neces- 


sary in  making  a  design  and  choos- 
ing a  happy  selection  of  materials 
both  spring  from  the  same  native 
talent,  but  the  whole  business  of  hand- 
work has  fallen  into  such  desuetude 
in  our  country  that  those  still  pursu- 
ing it  must  be  encouraged  to  find  a 
market. 

In  view  of  woman's  pronounced  in- 
terest in  the  higher  walks  of  creative 
art,  emphasis  of  her  work  in  these 
directions  is  permissible,  not  alone  for 
the  encouragement  of  women  who 
wish  to  work  along  these  lines,  but 
for  the  inducement  offered  their  shut- 
in  rural  neighbors  to  bring  their  fire- 
side products  to  the  front.  The  interest 
which  the  numerous  patriotic  societies 
evince  in  anything  ancient,  and  the 
work  of  the  club  women  of  America, 
are  doing  much  to  foster  a  growing 
tendency  for  individual  hand  produc- 
tion which  crops  out  here  and  there 
among  a  heterogeneous  mass  of  ma- 
chine-made products. 

Since  hand-made  work  must  al- 
ways cost  more  than  machine-made, 
its  excellence  must  be  appreciated, 
but  when  once  on  the  market  a 
steady  demand  will  prove  mutually 
advantageous  both  to  producer  and 
consumer.  The  twentieth  century 
marks  an  auspicious  advance,  in  the 
revival  of  old-time  crafts.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  the  coming  to  the 
front  of  these  fireside  industries  is 
more  than  a  passing  fad,  and  that 
people  are  again  appreciating  the 
novel  character  of  goods  entitled  to 
tlie  "hand-made"  mark  of  excellence. 


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The  Ha'nt  at  the  Old  Ladies'  Home 


By  Ellen  Paine  Huling 


FIVE  o'clock  and  he  ain't  got 
here  yet.  Tears  to  me  he 
ain't  over  anxious  to  come," 
remarked  Mrs.  Thomas  sar- 
castically, as  she  pushed  up  the  cur- 
tain. The  late  afternoon  sunlight  fell 
in  a  broad  band  across  the  braided  rag 
carpet  of  the  Old  Ladies'  Home,  and 
all  the  old  ladies,  sitting  stiffly  in  their 
Sunday  dresses  on  their  .slippery 
haircloth  chairs,  moved  back  to 
avoid  it.  Now  and  then  the  scent 
of  gillyflowers  along  the  front  walk 
drifted  in  through  the  open  win- 
dows, mingling  strangely  with  the 
smell  as  of  churches  which  clung 
to  the  "best  room." 

Little  Mrs.  Doolittle  consulted 
her  worn  gold  watch  with  a  lady-like 
air.  "I  don't  make  it  but  ten  min- 
utes of  five,  Mis'  Thomas,"  quavered 
she,  in  a  sweet,  thin  voice.  She  was 
a  tiny  woman  with  a  triangular 
face  and  dog-like,  nearsighted  brown 
eyes.  Of  all  the  old  ladies,  she 
alone  wore  over  the  shoulders  of 
her  black  silk  a  much  mended  lace 
collar. 

Mrs.  Thomas,  stout,  aggressive, 
snorted  with  disdain.  "I  guess  that 
front  hall  clock's  full  as  likely  to  be 
right  as  your  watch,  Polly  Doolittle, 
— I  alius  did  hear  them  plated 
things  was  apt  to  lose  time  I" 

Mrs.  Doolittle  flushed.  "This  watch 

come  from  Tiffany's,"  said  she  with 

timid     emphasis.       "My     son-in-law 

George  sent  it  to  me  from  New  York." 

450 


"Much  good  your  son-in-law 
George  does  you,"  retorted  Mrs. 
Thomas  with  another  snort,  but 
Mrs.  Doolittle,  staring  nearsight- 
edly out  of  the  window  through  her 
eyeglasses,   fortunately  did  not  hear. 

"Ain't  that  the  minister  now?" 
she  queried. 

Mrs.  Thomas  crossed  the  room 
and  looked  over  Mrs.  Doolittle's 
shoulder.  "That  ain't  him— that's 
Job  Harris  going  fer  his  cows!" 
Her  tone  was  contempt  itself.  "And 
if  it  was  him  'tain't  likely  you  could 
see  him  with  them  things!"  The 
eye-glasses  always  irritated  her. 

Mrs.  Doolittle  subsided  in  a 
bewildered  way,  and  good-natured 
Mrs.  Plummer  came  to  her  rescue. 
"P'rhaps  'twas  he  and  he's  turned 
off  to  the  Aliens'.  They  do  say  he's 
been  setting  up  with  Annie  lately, 
but  I  dunno's  there's  a  mite  of  truth 
in  it." 

The  old  ladies  looked  interested 
and  some  of  them  drew  their  chairs 
closer. 

"You'd  better  tell  Mis'  Haskins 
that,"  drawled  Mrs.  Thomas  grimly. 
"They  say  she's  settin'  her  cap  fer 
him  herself." 

"Sh — !"  hissed  half  a  dozen  voices 
as  a  step  sounded  in  the  hall.  .A  tall 
woman  in  scanty,  ill-draped  skirts 
shuffled  by  the  door-way.  She 
peered  into  the  room  as  she  passed. 
Her  black  eyes  above  the  high  cheek- 
bones had  the  defiant  yet  appealing 


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THE   HA'NT   AT   THE   OLD   LADIES'   HOME 


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look  that  one  sometimes  sees  in  the 
eyes  of  a  hunted  animaL 

"Hm!  Only  jest  Miss  Moon,". 
Mrs.  Thomas  said,  as  she  sat  heav- 
ily back.  "You  needn't  have  both- 
ered yourselves  about  her.  She 
couldn't  hear  a  supper-bell  if  you 
rung  it  close  to  her  best  ear !" 

"I  should  think  Miss  Moon  'd  cut 
her  skirts  different,"  purred  Mrs. 
Doolittle,  smoothing  her  own  well- 
preserved  gown.  "Them  gathered 
skirts  don't  become  her  at  all. 
Wasn't  she  the  woman  they  say 
used  to  live,  alone  up  in  the  ten- 
mile  swamp?" 

Mrs.  Thomas,  diverted  from  her 
wrath  by  prospect  of  a  story,  myste- 
riously nodded  her  head.  "She  alius 
was  queer.  They  tell  she  used  to 
have  nine  cats  'n  fuss  over  them  as 
if  they  were  babies,  and  when  the 
selectmen  went  over  to  tell  her 
she'd  got  to  go  to  the  Home,  she 
flared  up  'n  said  if  she  went  the 
cats  would  go  too.  But  you  know 
how  Mis'  Haskins  hates  cats, — 
she's  so  mean  anyway  that  last  Sat- 
urday night  I  caught  her  lockin'  up 
all  the  books  in  the  house  so's  we 
shouldn't  read  anything  but  our 
Bibles  Sundays, — ^and  she  said  there 
wouldn't  be  any  cats  in  the  Home 
so  long's  she  was  matron.  Miss 
Moon  set  out  she  wouldn't  go, 
but  they  made  her,  and  what  do  you 
think— they  tell  she  killed  every  one 
of  them  nine  cats  with  her  own 
hands— 'to  keep  'em  from  suflerin',' 
she  said.  And  when  the  town 
wagon  got  there,  she  was  settin'  on 
the  steps  with  one  of  them  dead  kit- 
tens in  her  arms,  huggin'  and  kissin' 

itr 


"For  the  land's  sakes!"  gasped 
Huldy  Jackson,  the  one  old  maid  of 
the  party.  "But  ain't  it  lucky  fer 
her  that  she's  deaf's  an  adder,  con- 
siderin'  she  has  to  sleep  up  there 
right  next  to — It?"  As  she  pro- 
nounced the  last  word  in  a  peculiar 
tone,  the  old  ladies  huddled  still 
closer.  "What  did  it  sound  to  you 
like?"  she  whispered,  turning  to 
Mrs.  Doolittle. 

Little  Mrs.  Doolittle  glanced 
nervously  back  over  her  shoulder 
as  if  she  saw  something  behind  her. 
The  strip  of  sunlight  was  gone  now, 
and  shadows  were  beginning  to 
crawl  outward  from  behind  the 
little  goblin  heads  carven  on  the 
backs  of  the  chairs. 

"It  was  just  at  supper-time,"  she 
began,  "the  same  time's  we've 
always  heard  it  before,  and  you  was  all 
downstairs, — I'd  left  my  clean  hand- 
kerchief upstairs  an'  I'd  gone  up  to 
get  it, — an'  then  I  heard  the  noise 
again,  a  little  thin,  squeaky  voice 
comin'  out  of  the  east  wing  down 
beyond  Miss  Moon's  and  Mis' 
Plummer's  rooms, — fer  all  the  world 
just  like  a  baby,  just  as  if  it  was 
lonesome  and  callin'  fer  some  one. 
'N  I  ran  downstairs  so  hard  I 
dropped  the  handkerchief  and  I 
haven't  found  it  yet." 

"Mice,  most  likely,"  grunted  Mrs 
Thomas. 

Mrs.  Doolittle  turned  on  her  so 
quickly  that  she  gasped.  "Mice,  Mis' 
Thomas !  Did  you  ever  hear  of  mice 
that  wailed  and  cried  for  you  just 
like  a  baby, — just  as  my  Mary  used 
to?  I  told  Mis'  Haskins  I  was 
skeered  to  death  to  sleep  up  in  that 
east   wing  any   more, — 'n   yet  I've 


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452 


THE   HA'NT   AT   THE   OLD    LADIES'    HOME 


been  hearing  that  little  lonesome 
thing  crying  fer  me  ever  since. 
Didn't  you  hear  it  that  other  time?" 

Mrs.  Thomas  nodded  reluctantly. 
*1  did  hear  somethin',"  she  said, 
"But  if  it's  a  ha*nt  why's  it  a-ha'ntin' 
anyway?  Never  was  any  harm  done 
here  fer's  I  know.  Deacon  Brown 
lived  here  before  the  town  bought 
it,  and  he  hadn't  spirit  to  hurt  a  hen, — 
except  to  starve  it  to  death  like  the 
rest  of  his  family.  What's  it  a-ha  ntin' 
for,  anyway?" 

"That's  what  the  minister's  com- 
in'  fer,"  said  Huldy  Jackson.  *1 
always  heard  a  ha'nt  wouldn't  stay 
in  the  house  with  a  minister." 

The  voices  of  all  had  fallen  to  a 
whisper  and  they  sat  on  the  edges 
of  their  chairs  bending  nervously 
forward  toward  each  other  in  the 
dusk.  Mrs.  Plummer's  plump  arm 
was  about  Mrs.  Doolittle's  waist. 
Of  a  sudden  the  door-bell  rang, 
sending  discordant  echoes  jangling 
through  the  corridors,  and  all 
started. 

Then  Mrs.  Haskins's  stout  figure 
bustled  through  the  hall  and  they 
heard  her  saying  effusively,  ''Come 
right  in,  Mr.  Arnold,  come  right  in. 
I  was  afraid  you  wasn't  coming." 
There  was  inaudible  response  in  a 
man's  tones,  and  the?  voices  neared 
as  she  showed  him  toward  the  "best 
room."  "Step  right  in  this  way  an' 
I'll  have  the  light  lit  up  in  a  min- 
ute." 

When,  a  momefnt  later,  the  kero- 
sene lamp  sent  faint  gleams  raying 
out  into  the  abysses  of  darkness  be- 
hind the  haircloth  chairs,  it  revealed 
all  the  little  old  ladies  sitting,  prim 
and  stiff,  along  the  wall.  The  min- 
ister, a  young  man  fresh  from  the 


theological  school,  gave  a  startled 
glance  around  and  blushed  ineflFect- 
ually.  Tall,  awkward,  large-jointed, 
with  light,  straight  hair,  and  pale 
blue  eyes,  he  was  much  g^ven  to 
blushing. 

Mrs.  Haskins  bustled  forward. 
"Mr.  Arnold,  this  is  Mrs.  Doolittle." 
The  young  man  solcfmnly  shook  the 
thin  fingers  of  Mrs.  Doolittle,  who 
courtesied  until  her  little  side-curls 
bobbed  from  side  to  side.  "Mrs. 
Thomas."  In  like  silence  he  ex- 
tended his  right  hand  to  Mrs. 
Thomas.  The  motion  was  repeated 
until,  under  Mrs.  Haskins's  direc- 
tion, he  had  shaken  hands  with  each 
of  the  twelve,  growing  more  embar- 
rassed each  time.  No  one  spoke, 
and  at  the  end  there  was  a  long 
pause  which  the  matron  finally 
broke  by  announcing  supper. 

Sitting  opposite  Mrs.  Haskins  at 
the  table,  the  minister  looked  more 
at  home.  Mrs.  Haskins,  plump, 
complacent,  with  a  smile  as  obvi- 
ously put  on  for  the  occasion  as 
were  her  crimps,  directed  all  her 
conversation  at  him.  Once  there 
was  a  little  flutter  when  Mrs.  Doo- 
little lost  her  glasses  and  Mrs. 
Thomas  found  them  for  her,  growl- 
ing in  loud  whispcfrs,  "Sarves  you 
right, — why  don't  you  wear  spec- 
tacles like  the  rest  of  us?"  But  for 
the  most  part  the  old  women  ate 
with  relish  and  in  stolid  silence. 
Eating  was  the  one  gfreat  pleasure 
of  their  livcfs,  and  they  made  the 
most  of  it.  Miss  Moon,  who  had 
come  in  after  the  others,  ate  loudly 
with  her  knife,  seeing  which  Huldy 
Jackson  nudged  her  neighbor's 
elbow. 

It  was  a  hot,  close  night;  heavy 


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THE    HA'NT    AT   THE   OLD    LADIES'    HOME 


453 


"thunder-heads"  hung  low  over  th^ 
fields,  emitting  continual  quiverings 
of  heat-lightning  and  occasional 
mutters  of  thunder.  Now  and  then 
sudden  gusts  flapped  the  window- 
shades.  As  time  went  on,  conver- 
sation flagged;  every  one  seemed 
listening  for  something.  In  vain 
Mrs.  Haskins  remarked  on  the  like- 
lihood of  a  shower,  on  the  haying- 
season,  the  "Conference,"  and 
finally  there  was  awkward  silence, 
"Mr.  Arnold;  do  you  believe  in 
ha'nts?"  at  last  she  asked  nervously. 
The  young  minister  raised  his 
gaze  from  his  peach  preserves  and 
moved  uneasily  at  seeing  every  eye 
fixed  on  him. 

"I — I  hardly  know,  Mrs.  Has- 
kins," he  stammered.  "In  general,  I 
think  such  things  can  be  explained 
by  natural  causes." 

"How  are  you  going  to  explain  it 
when  it  ain't  a  thing,  when  it's  just 
a  voice, — an'  a  little  voice?"  Mrs. 
Doolittle  started  as  if  frightened  by 
the  sound  of  her  own  words,  'but 
sat  looking  straight  at  the  minister. 
He  flushed  again  and  looked  help- 
lessly back  at  her.  "In  general,  Mrs. 
Doolittle — "  he  repeated. 

Just  then  an  unusually  violent  gust 
swept  under  the  linen  shades.  The 
lamp  flickered,  went  out;  a  door 
upstairs  slammed  violently,  and 
down  through  the  darkness  came  a 
little  wailing  cry, — ^unmistakably  that 
of  a  baby, — which  died  away  in  a  long 
moan. 

Some  of  the  old  ladies  screamed, 
most  of  them  huddled  together  in 
frightened  silence.  But  out  of  the 
dark  sounded  Mrs.  Doolittle's 
voice,  clear  and  shrill  in  spite  of  its 
terror.     "How  are  you  goin'  to  ex- 


plain that,  Mr.  Arnold?*  I  don't  care 
whether  it's  a  ha'nt  or  not,  it's  just 
a  little  thing  lonesome  in  the  dark 
and  I'm  goin'  up  to  see  to  it!" 

Mrs.  Thomas's  masculine  tones 
cut  her  short.  "Go  an'  set  down 
there,  Polly  Doolittle,  I'm  a-going 
to  see  to  this  thing !" 

But  Mrs.  Doolittle  had  already 
relighted  the  lamp  and  was  half 
way  up  the  stairs;  Mrs.  Thomas 
and  the  minister  could  only  follow 
her.  As  seen  above  them  in  the  halo 
of  lamp-light,  her  small,  pointed 
features  fairly  quivered  with  deci- 
sion, though,  as  Mrs.  Thomas 
noticed,  the  lamp  in  her  shaking 
hand  dripped  black  oil  stains  all  up 
the  front  stair  carpet. 

From  afar  Mrs.  Haskins  and  most 
of  the  old  ladies  also  followed, 
trailing  their  best  Sunday  skirts 
recklessly  behind  them.  They  saw 
the  light  of  the  lamp  disappear  down 
the  east  wing,  they  heard  some  one 
open  the  doors  of  Mrs.  Doolittle's 
and  Mrs.  Plummer's  deserted 
rooms,  they  flattened  against  the 
wall  and  shrieked  when  a  tall  figure 
slid  upstairs  past  them  and  ran 
down  the  corridor.  But  only  Mrs. 
*  Doolittlei  Mrs.  Thomas  and  the 
minister  saw  what  happened  when 
the  latter  flung  open  the  third  door 
and  lifted  high  the  lamp. 

Before  him,  in  a  heap  on  the  floor, 
crouched  Miss  Moon,  her  thin  gray 
hair  straggling  over  her  face  as  she 
swayed  back  and  forth,  crooning  to 
something  her  long,  skinny  fingers 
held  clutched  to  her  breast.  Rais- 
ing the  lamp  still  higher,  he  saw  the 
frightened  eyes  and  ruffled  fur  of  a 
little  black  kitten. 

"Don't  you  dare  touch  it!     It's 


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THE   HA'NT   AT   THE   OLD   LADIES'    HOME 


mine!"  she  cried.  Her  eyes  glit- 
tered like  a  madwoman's,  and,  with 
head  thrown  back  and  body  turned 
half  away,  she  shielded  her  armful 
as  if  expecting  a  blow.  The  min- 
ister had  once  seen  a  woman  protect 
her  child  that  way  from  a  drunken 
brute  of  a  husband.  "Don't  you 
dare  touch  it !"  she  repeated  wildly. 
"Fve  stood  it  two  months  and  I  can't 
stand  it  no  longer.  I  can't  live 
without  a  cat!  An'  I  don't  care  if 
you  are  the  minister, — I  hope  I'll 
never  go  to  your  heaven  if  I've 
got  to  get  along  without  'em 
there!" 

Mrs.  Doolittle  sprang  forward 
with  a  little  cry,  and,  kneeling,  flung 
a  thin,  protecting  arm  about  Miss 
Moon's  waist,  her  cheek  against  the 
kitten's  head. 

"Of  course  you  can  keep  it!" 
gasped  she  passionately.  "There 
ain't  nobody  going  to  hurt  it  a  mite. 
There,  there,"  she  murmured,  strok- 
ing the  kitten's  ruffled  fur. 

"Keep  it?  I  rather  guess  so!"  Mrs. 
Thomas  had  planted  her  stout  form 


belligerently  across  the  doorway.  "I'd 
like  to  see  the  one  that  says  yoii  can't 
keep  it!"  she  snorted.  "I'd  laugh  if 
you  ain't  allowed  to  have  that  scrap  of 
a  kitten, — an'  I'd  just  like  to  see  the 
person  that's  going  to  take  it  away 
from  you  I" 

There  was  silence  in  the  group  be- 
yond the  circle  of  lamplight;  then 
Mrs.  Haskins  started  forward  aggres- 
sively. But  the  minister  was  before 
her, — no  longer  a  mere  awkward  lad, 
but  with  the  light  o£  his  high  calling 
upon  his  face,  so  that  she  shnmk  back 
abashed.  In  that  moment  he  saw,  not 
an  old  woman  and  her  cat,  but  the 
starved  motherhood  that  had  never 
held  a  child,  a  Madonna  that  might 
have  been. 

"Miss  Moon,  no  one  shall  take  it 
from  you,"  he  said  huskily,  and  step- 
ping forward  past  Mrs.  Thomas,  with 
his  big,  awkward  fingers,  he  gently 
stroked  the  kitten's  fur.  Then,  in 
New  England  dread  of  a  scene,  he  put 
down  the  lamp  and  shut  the  door  be- 
hind him,  leaving  together  the  three 
mothers. 


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By  Georg  Schock 


IN  the  dull  November  morning  the 
kitchen  was  gloomier  than  usual. 
It  challenged  you  to  find  fault  with 
it,  and  indeed  you  could  not,  for  it 
had  everything  in  it  that  a  Pennsyl- 
vania Dutch  kitchen  should  have,  and 
if  you  wanted  a  little  cheerfulness 
you  were  frivolous.  The  red  gera- 
niums in  the  window,  struggling  to 
be  gay,  looked  as  incongruous  as  a 
red  bow  in  a  weeping  woman's  hair, 
and  the  only  other  bright  spot  was 
old  Mr.  Seaman's  face. 

He  was  in  his  Sunday  clothes  and 
moved  awkwardly,  but  the  awkward- 
ness was  a  matter  of  externals,  for 
he  jumped  like  a  boy  to  lift  the  boil- 
ing kettle.  When  he  broke  the  eggs 
into  the  pan  the  butter  splashed  up 
in  little  particles  of  torment  that 
could  not  hurt  his  glossy  red  hands, 
used  to  swing  the  hammer  year  after 
year  in  the  sparks  of  the  blacksmith's 
shop.  He  had  been  the  blacksmith  of 
three  townships  until  he  gave  up  his 
trade  on  his  wife's  account,  and  was 
as  deft  in  his  kitchen  as  at  his  forge. 

When  breakfast  was  ready  he  car- 
ried a  plate  into  the  next  room,  as  he 
had  done  every  morning  for  three 
years.  There  lay  the  face  on  the  pil- 
low. Mary  Seaman  was  a  large 
woman,  and  her  illness  had  not  wasted 
her ;  her  cheeks  and  jaw  were  full,  her 
gray  hair  abundant.  Only  her  left 
hand  looked  thinner  and  smaller  than 
the  one  under  her  cheek.  She  always 
put  the  hand  she  could  move  under 


her  cheek ;  the  other  lay  where  it  was 
placed  since  the  time  when  she 
dropped  a  milk-pail  out  of  it  in  falling 
on  the  stone  step  three  years  before. 
Her  bed  stood  where  any  one  lying  in 
it  could  see  all  that  went  on  in  the 
kitchen  and  the  parlor.  Any  one  who 
could  see,  that  is.  Mary  Seaman's 
inflamed  eyes  were  wide  open,  but 
their  sense  was  shut. 

The  old  man  sat  on  the  bed  and 
held  his  wife  in  one  arm,  painfully 
supporting  the  tray  on  his  knees  and 
spilling  the  coffee  into  the  saucer. 
"Now  you  eat  breakfast.  Mom,"  he 
said.  "I  got  ham."  The  woman's 
blank  expression  did  not  change;  she 
opened  her  mouth  and  he  fed  her. 
There  was  something  both  grotesque 
and  terrible  in  the  animal  movements 
and  the  automaton  face,  but  her  hus- 
band had  the  armor  of  custom  and 
unimaginativeness,  and  chattered  to 
her  undisturbed.  Whcfn  he  dressed 
her,  he  handled  the  impotent  limbs  as 
gently  as  a  mother.  "Now  vait 
vonce,"  he  said,  when  she  was  well 
wrapped  up.  He  reappeared  from  the 
parlor,  dragging  in  a  curious  wagon, 
like  a  child's  express  wagon,  except 
that  it  was  much  longer  and  nar- 
rower, with  a  mattress  in  the  bottom 
and  a  blanket  and  patchwork  com- 
fort folded  on  the  top.  He  took  a  pil- 
low from  the  bed  and  laid  his  wife 
comfortably  on  it  in  the  little  car- 
riage. Then  in  a  hurry  he  set  the 
bed-room  in  order  and  washed  the  few 

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WHOM   GOD   HATH   JOINED 


dishes,  talking  all  the  time.  When  he 
had  ordered  everything  he  covered  his 
wife  snugly  with  the  gay  quilt, 
dragged  the  carriage  through  the 
door  and  locked  the  house  behind  him. 
"Now  I  am  your  horse  ant  ve  go  to 
Sallie's  vonce,  ain'd,  Mom?"  he  re- 
marked, picking  up  the  tongue  of  the 
wagon  and  starting  down  the  gray 
road.  There  was  a  certain  gallantry 
about  the  strong  old  figure.  It  was 
easy  for  a  knight  to  crimson  a  favor 
in  an  enviable  service,  but  to  attend 
upon  his  lady  year  after  year  with 
petty  tasks,  and  she  bedridden  and 
unlovely, — how  then? 

Centreport  has  but  one  street,  which 
curves  toward  the  end  like  a  back  with 
a  tail  switched  to  one  side.  Along 
the  curve  the  houses  are  scattered,  and 
the  little  yellow  house  of  the  Seamans 
behind  the  willow  trees  was  the  last 
one, — the  end  of  the  tail, — ^with  open 
country  beyond  it.  When  the  acci- 
dent happened  fhe  old  man  bought 
this  place  and  took  his  wife  there,  but 
he  still  felt  a  proprietary  interest  in 
the  blacksmith  shop  which  his  son-in- 
law,  James  Rickenbach,  had  taken 
over  from  him ;  and  the  furniture  that 
the  small  house  did  not  require  re- 
mained in  the  large  one  by  the 
smithy  where  Mary  Seaman  had 
bustled  in  her  prime.  It  looked  as  fa- 
miliar as  ever  to  the  old  man,  except 
that  the  stone  step  on  which  his  wife 
fell  had  been  taken  away. 

As  he  came  along  the  street  he 
could  see  the  red  Sunday  cap  of  his 
youngest  grandchild,  Charles  Ricken- 
bach, the  event  of  whose  week  was 
the  waiting  for  "Grandpop"  on  Sun- 
day morning.  Now  he  was  hanging 
patiently  on  the  gate,  all  alone,  the 


only  human  being  in  sight,  and  when 
he  saw  the  little  wagon  he  tore  into 
the  house  shouting,  "Mom!"  Then 
he  was  back  with  his  mother  behind 
him.  She  beamed  at  her  father;  but 
while  he  dragged  the  cart  to  the  porch 
and  carried  the  invalid  to  the  down- 
stairs bed-room,  her  face  had  the  sad- 
ness that  comes  with  a  reminder  of  an 
unending  grief. 

Sallie  Rickenbach  was  not  given  to 
lamentation,   and   her   sad  look  van- 
ished while  Isaac  admired  a  wonder- 
ful   new    cushion    made    of    humpy 
squares  of  black  and  magenta,   and 
read  the  Sunday  paper  with  Charlie 
asleep  on  his  arm.    Presently,  vnth  an 
irregular  trampling  and  the  sound  of 
contentious    voices,     the     door     was 
opened   and  there   entered   the  other 
Rickenbach     children      in      dispute. 
Lizzie,  a  thin  and  nervous  creature, 
was  arraigning  the  lusty  Isaac,  who, 
his    pear-shaped     face    redder    than 
usual,   strove  to  assume   bravado  to 
hide  a  naked  shame;  and  Ellie,  the 
eldest,  whose  deportment  was  suited 
to  frizzled  hair  and  a  new  hat,  swung 
her   skirts   across   the   floor  and   sat 
down  with  an  air  of  lady-like  disap- 
proval.    Lizzie  was  voluble:  "Yes,  I 
tell  on  you!"  she  cried,   "ant  I  tell 
Grandpop  too !     Ain'd  you  asliamed  ! 
I  belief  you  chust  vant  to  be  smart! 
Vy,  Mom,  ve  vas  in  Sunday-school  ant 
I  heart  somebody  laugh,  ant  then  I 
seen  Ikey,  ant  he  vas  going  lige  this," 
she  twisted  her  small,  sharp  nose  and 
mouth,  which  in  the  village  children's 
code  expresses  defiance,  "he  vas  going 
lige   this  at   Monroe  Goodman;   ant 
efery  vone  vas  laughing,  ant  the  Su- 
perintendent he  seen  it  too,  ant  he 
stopped  his  talk  ant  chust  stood  ant 


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looged;  ant  Ikey  he  didn't  see 
nothing  yet,  ant  he  done  lige  this," 
she  winked  her  snapping  eyes  furi- 
ously, "ant  then  they  laughed  awful, 
only  Monroe  Goodman  he  vas  scared. 
Ant  the  superintendent,  he  talked  to 
Ikey  in  front  of  the  whole  school,  ant 
afterwarts  me  and  Ellie  hat  to  hear 
vat  a  bad  boy  Ikey  is.  Ant  they 
made  all  the  fun  of  us !"  she  wailed. 

Ikey  smiled  sheepishly.  **I  scared 
Monroe  Goodman  goot,"  he  re- 
marked. "He  von'd  nefer  stick  a  pin 
in  me  no  more" ;  and  Lizzie,  the  venom 
out  of  her,  subsided,  while  the  mother 
hastened  to  make  a  diversion.  "Come 
ofer  here  ant  show  Grandpop  how 
nice  you  can  sing  vonce."  Ellie 
opened  the  parlor  organ  and  seated 
herself  consequentially;  Lizzie  and 
Ikey  stood  behind,  with  their  mouths 
open  ready  to  begin.  After  one  or 
two  false  starts,  they  struck  into  a 
German  hymn.  "Freie  Tag,"  shrilled 
Lizzie,  her  little  body  swaying. 
"Freie  Tag!"  "Freie  Tag,"  Ikey 
shouted,  with  his  eyes  on  the  ceiling. 
"Freie  Tag,"  Ellie's  trill  was  a  vocal 
simper.  The  pedals  of  the  or- 
gan squeaked  occasionally.  Qiarlie, 
roused  by  the  outburst,  rubbed  his 
eyes  and  struggled  up  on  his  grand- 
father's knee ;  then  the  fine  contagion 
of  artistic  enthusiasm  seized  him,  and 
he  joined  with  a  series  of  discon- 
nected sounds.  Lizzie  scowled,  but 
her  grandfather  smiled  at  her,  and 
stroked  the  little  boy's  hair.  "Chust 
you  go  on,"  he  said.  "That's  awful 
nice.     Oiarlie  he  vants  to  sing  too." 

It  was  after  dinner  and  James  and 
the  children  had  gone  to  church, 
when  Sallie  attempted  to  change  her 
parent's  mind.     She  had  been  in  to 


see  her  mother,  who  lay  as  usual  with 
her  hand  under  her  cheek  looking 
straight  ahead.  Sallie  hung  over  her 
a  little.  When  she  came  into  the  par- 
lor the  look  of  grief  was  deeper  than 
usual,  and  she  sat  down  by  the  win- 
dow and  stared  out  into  the  empty 
street.    "Pop,"  she  said  after  a  while. 

The  old  man  lowered  his  paper  and 
looked  at  her  over  his  spectacles. 

"Pop,"  she  hesitated,  "don'd  you 
think  might  be  vou  coult  come  here  to 
lif?" 

"Do  you  ant  Chames  vant  to  flit?" 

"No,  ve  don'd  vant  no  flitting,  but 
I  think  it  voult  be  awful  nice  for  you 
ant  Mom  to  lif  here  vith.  Then  I 
coult  tage  care  of  her." 

"Ain'd  I  goot  enough  to  take  care 
of  your  Mom  no  more  ?" 

"It's  awful  hart  vork  for  you,  Pop, 
to  cook  ant  keep  the  house  ant  tage 
care  of  her  ant  farm  too.  It  ain'd 
right.  If  you  come  I  fix  you  real 
nice.  You  ant  her  coult  have  this  bet- 
room  ant  you  needn't  do  nothing  but 
haf  a  goot  time." 

"I'm  fixed  goot  enough  now,"  said 
her  father  shortly. 

"I  ain'd  nefer  felt  right  aboud  you 
living  lige  that,  Pop,"  his  daughter 
continued,  "not  since  I  come  up  the 
yart  ant  seen  her  laying  on  that  stone 
step  vith  the  milk  all  ofer.  I  haf  to 
be  vorried  all  the  time.  I  lige  to 
loog  after  her  myself." 

The  old  man's  eyes  softened  a  little. 
"It  ain'd  no  neet  for  you  to  worry," 
he  answered.  "Your  mother  she 
vorked  goot  as  long  as  she  coult.  Now 
I  tage  care  of  her  myself.  I  guess  I 
can  do  something  else  beside  be  her 
horse." 

Sallie   faltered,  but   produced  her 


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WHOM   GOD    HATH   JOINED 


last  argument.  "Pop,"  she  ventured, 
"this  here  don'd  look  righd  for  you 
to  vork  that  vay.  Ant  no  vone  ain'd 
nefer  learned  you  nothing  aboud 
cooking  and  the  neighbors  they  say — '* 

Her  father  interrupted  her.  "The 
neighbors  they  dare  mint  their  own 
business,  ant  it  ain*d  for  you  to  say 
nothing,  Sallie.  I  tage  care  of  your 
Mom.  I  guess  I  cook  goot  enough 
for  her.  That  there  turkey  of  yours 
vas  done  too  much.  Next  you  think 
I  can'd  be  her  horse  no  more,  ant 
you  are  at  me  for  some  vone  else  to 
haul  her.  Now  I  don*d  vant  to  hear 
no  more  such  darned  foolishness.  I 
tage  a  sleep." 

He  put  his  newspaper  over  his 
face  and  snored  ostentatiously. 

Three  days  later,  while  he  was 
busy  in  the  corn-field,  Isaac  had  his 
great  idea.  It  was  a  day  of  low-hang- 
ing clouds  and  warm,  infrequent  airs 
that  made  the  brittle  leaves  of  the 
corn-shocks  flap  like  beggars'  rags. 
Isaac  in  his  blue  overalls,  stripping 
the  ears  and  flinging  them  to  the 
golden  pile  beside  him,  was  a  whole- 
some sight.  Nearby  stood  the  long 
cart  with  Mary  in  it,  her  gray  eyes 
upturned  to  the  gray  sky.  The  fam- 
ily cat,  a  veritable  Maltese  Nimrod, 
was  mincing  across  the  stubble;  he 
often  dined  on  field-mice,  but  he 
looked  as  distinterested  as  though  he 
had  no  mind  at  all.  Old  Isaac's  arm 
stretched  and  bent  with  fine  regu- 
larity. Presently  he  worked  more,, 
slowly;  then  he  stopped  altogether; 
then  he  began  to  speak. 

"Thirty-seven  years  this  month 
since  ve  vas  married,  Mom,  ain'd? 
This  corn-husking  recalls  it.  Ve  vas 
at    Schaeffer's    corn-husking    ant    I 


pullet  a  ret  ear,  ant  I  give  you  a  kiss 
in  front  of  all  the  folks,  ant  I  asked 
you  that  night  yet  ant  ve  vas  married 
in  two  weeks.  Ve  didn't  neet  no 
vone  to  tell  us  vat  ve  vanted !  Thirty- 
seven  years  ago!  That's  a  real  long 
time.  My,  you  vas  a  smart  girl !  Oh, 
yes!"  he  sighed  heavily,  and  worked 
for  a  while.  Then  he  talked  on :  "That 
there  vas  an  early  Fall.  Ve  vent  oflf 
in  a  cutter  to  Mohrsville,  me  ant  you, 
to  tage  the  train,  ant  ve  vas  three  days 
in  Reading.  You  hat  a  nice  ret  dress 
ant  a  ret  hoot,  ant  I  thought,  *I  buy 
her  the  next  vone.' "  He  threw  a 
phimp  ear,  and  it  shone  in  the  air  like 
a  comet  or  a  genius  before  losing  it- 
self in  the  common  heap.  "Say,  Mom, 
ve  vas  married  on  November  elev- 
enth, ain'd?  The  eleventh  is  next 
Sunday.  Mom,  it  vould  be  awful  nice 
to  ask  Sallie  ant  Chames  ant  Ikey  ant 
the  girls  ant  the  little  fellow  to  eat 
dinner.  Ve  haf  a  kint  of  a  vedding 
party."  He  bent  over  her.  "Mom !" 
he  said  very  loud,  "Dare  I  ask 
Chames  ant  Sallie  to  eat  dinner  next 
Sunday.?"  She  did  not  notice  him,  so 
he  put  himself  in  the  way  of  the  level 
stare  and  repeated  his  question  two 
or  three  times.  Slowly  the  eyes 
focussed  themselves,  with  a  look  of 
piteous  bewilderment;  the  lips  un- 
closed— there  was  an  effort.  He  spoke 
again.  "Yes,'*  she  answered,  almost 
as  loud  as  he.  He  smiled  at  her  while 
he  adjusted  the  comfort.  "That's 
right,  Mom.  Ve  haf  a  goot  time  yet 
vonce."  He  stopped  to  chuckle  on  the 
way  to  his  corn-heap.  "I  show  Sallie 
I  cook  a  turkey  goot.  Her  Pop  ain'd 
so  dumb  lige  she  thinks." 

The  day  of  the  wedding-party  was 


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warm.  There  was  a  screen  in  one  of 
the  kitchen  windows,  and  the  odors  of 
the  dinner  came  through  maddeningly 
to  the  Maltese  cat  as  he  lay  on  the 
sill  and  glared  in  with  shy  green  eyes. 
ITie  geraniums  were  so  red  that  they 
fairly  shouted  in  the  sun.  Mary, 
dressed  in  her  best,  with  the  gold 
brooch  that  had  been  her  husband's 
wedding-gift,  sat  where  she  was  put, 
in  an  arm-chair  at  the  head  of  the 
table.  Old  Isaac  had  refused  to  allow 
his  daughter  in  the  kitchen,  and  now 
he  was  standing  beside  his  wife,  look- 
ing triumphantly  at  the  array  of  pies 
and  thumping  with  a  knife-handle  to 
call  the  family.  They  streamed  in — 
James  with  the  carefully  indifferent 
look  that  the  Dutch  adult  male  al- 
ways carries  to  a  festive  meal.  Little 
Charlie,  not  being  old  enough  to  have 
assumed  this  portion  of  his  inherit- 
ance, came  on  an  enthusiastic  run. 
His  grandfather  laughed  delightedly. 
"Charlie  is  hungry,  ain'd,  Charlie?" 
The  •Id  man's  general  kindliness  was 
increased  by  some  definite  source  of 
joyful  amusement.  He  kept  watching 
the  table  with  twinkling  eyes.  Isaac, 
hurrying  in  from  the  barn-yard, 
stumbled  over  his  elder  sister's  foot 
and  saved  himself  by  catching  at  her 
shoulder.  The  jar  shook  an  exclama- 
tion out  of  the  sedate  damsel,  who 
remarked  with  contempt,  "Yes,  that's 
right;  so  dappig!"  EUie's  scorn, 
though  frequent,  was  usually  silent, 
and  her  brother  took  refuge  in  his 
inverted  plate.  Lizzie,  encouraged  by 
her  senior's  disgust  to  reprehend  Ikey 
further  on  small  pretext,  watched  him 
derisively  and  saw  him  pause  when 
the  plate  was  a  quarter  lifted,  while 
his  jaw  fell  as  tfiough  a  prop  had 


been  knockcfd  out  from  under  it.  "Du 
lop  pes!"  she  scoffed.  Her  brother 
paid  no  attention,  and  she  squirmed 
to  look  over  his  shoulder  with  a  star- 
tled "Ei !"  like  the  note  of  a  domestic 
fowl.  Their  mother  stopped  talking 
to  lift  her  own  plate.  Hers  was  a 
double  eagle  and  she  turned  a  pleased 
face  to  her  father,  though  she  said  no 
more  than  "Veil,  Pop!" 

"Yes,  I  vand  you  to  haf  a  vedding- 
present,  Sallie,"  the  old  man  exulted. 
"Yill  you  buy  somesing,  Charlie? 
You  think  I  ain'd  no  goot  at  house- 
keeping. 1  bet  she  don'd  gif  you  noth- 
ing lige  that,  ain'd,  Chames  ?" 

"Vat  do  you  say  to  Grandpop?"  the 
children's  mother  reminded.  EUie,  the 
proper,  led  the  way  with  a  rounded 
"Thangs" ;  Lizzie  and  Ikey  broke  oflf 
the  excitement  of  measuring  their 
coins  to  echo  her.  The  latter  was 
simply  dazzled;  but  Ikey,  though 
silent,  had  a  purpose  in  his  little  gray 
eye.  "I  put  it  in  my  bank,"  he 
thought,  "then  I  haf  more  than  all 
the  other  fellers."  Even  Ellie's  emo- 
tion was  too  much  for  her  to  entirely 
hide.  "Now  I  get  a  gold  bracelet. 
Mom,"  she  remarked. 

When  the  meal  was  over  James 
stretched  himself  with  a  loud  groan 
and  sauntered  towards  the  orchard, 
picking  his  teeth  meditatively.  The 
children  scattered.  As  old  Isaac  stood 
beside  his  wife,  her  inflamed  eyes 
rested  on  him  with  an  unusual  look 
of  love  struggling  to  express  itself, 
like  the  eyes  of  a  patient  hound.  He 
noticed  it  and  bent  over  her.  "Vy, 
Mom,  you  vant  to  say  somesing?"  he 
asked  affectionately.  She  was  silent. 
"She  loogs  real  goot  to-day,"  he  re- 
marked to  Sallie.    "Ate  a  big  dinner. 


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She  liges  to  haf  me  feet  her.  She 
loogs  like  she  vanted  to  talk,  but  I 
guess  I  don't  ask  her  no  questions. 
They're  awful  hart  on  her."  He  gath- 
ered her  up  carefully  and  laid  her  on 
the  bed.  "Now  you  go  to  sleep."  He 
was  tucking  her  up  like  a  child.  "Poor 
Mom!"  He  came  into  the  kitchen 
again.  "Veil,  Sallie,  you  thoughd  I 
coultn't  tage  care  of  your  Mom; 
thoughd  I  coultn't  cook  goot  enough. 
Ain'd  you  ashamed  now  ?  That  theref 
turkey  of  mine  vas  better  than  yours, 
ain'd?''  Sallie  laughed.  "Yes,  Pop, 
you  are  a  goot  cook.  I  don'd  say  no 
more  about  that.  I  guess  I  daren't 
vash  the  dishes  for  you — ^you  think  I 
don'd  do  it  right." 

Her  father  laughed  too.  "Yes,  you 
dare  help."  They  were  both  busy 
clearing  the  table  Old  Isaac  carried 
the  cakes  and  pies  to  the  cellar  and 
fed  the  hungry  cat.  Charlie  wandered 
in  with  cheeks  as  red  as  his  cap,  and 
subsided  on  a  log  in  a  comer  of  the 
fire-place.  Sallie  collected  the  dishes 
with  the  ring  and  clatter  that  are  the 
audible  expression  of  plenty  and  in- 
dustry and  satisfaction.  The  sunlight 
deepened  as  the  afternoon  advanced, 
and  the  air  grew  sleepily  warm. 

When  she  poured  the  water  from 
the  tea-kettle  into  the  dish-pans,  the 
steam  rose  before  her  face  and 
blurred  the  red  geraniums.  "Now 
come.  Pop,"  she  called.  The  old 
man  was  fairly  luminous  with  satis- 
faction in  the  success  of  his  wed- 
ding-party. "This  here  vas  a  goot 
thing,  ain'd?"  he  said.  "Mom,  she 
liged  it,  I  belief.  I  go  ant  loog  at 
her, — it  may  be  she  ain'd  got  enough 
cover, — ant  then  I  come  ant  help  vith." 
He   disappeared    into   the   bed-room. 


Sallie  was  rattling  the  soap  in  her  pan 
and  did  not  hear  the  first  exclamation, 
but  his  call  reached  her,  in  a  concen- 
trated voice  as  though  all  his  powers 
of  emotion  were  held  in  check.  Qiar- 
lie,  touched  by  the  instant  contagion 
of  grief,  set  up  a  cry;  his  mother 
nished  into  the  next  room,  dripping 
water  from  her  wet  hands.  Isaac  was 
bending  above  the  bed  and  turned  his 
head  over  his  shoulder  to  his  daugh- 
ter with  a  sort  of  childish  reliance 
and  hope,  for  the  hand  was  imder  the 
cheek  and  the  poor  face  on  the  pillow 
had  been  as  immobile  in  life.  Who 
could  say  what  vital  need  of  expres- 
sion had  lighted  the  eyes,  still  blank 
and  open,  or  what  infinitely  delicate 
portion  of  the  shocked  brain  the  unac- 
customed movement  of  love  had  taxed 
too  heavily,  crushing  with  its  feather- 
weight like  the  touch  of  God's  own 
finger  ? 

Six  days  later  the  Saturday  bustle 
of  the  village  was  changed  to  a  Sab- 
bath solemnity.  The  strange  Dutch 
reverence  for  the  dead  which  brings  a 
relative  across  the  width  of  states  to 
follow  the  coffin  to  the  grave,  height- 
ened by  the  circumstances  of  Mary 
Seaman's  taking-oflf.  was  drawing 
several  townships  from  their  work. 
1  eams  kept  coming  in  from  all  direc- 
tions, and  the  hitching-shed  beside 
the  church  was  quite  full  of  mud- 
splashed  phaetons  and  soft-eyed  coun- 
try horses  with  shaggy  fetlocks,  slow- 
gaited  from  the  plough.  Along  the 
street  one  door  after  another  was 
opened,  and  people  came  out  dressed 
in  their  best  and  solemn.  Instead  of 
playing  the  children  stood  in  groups 
and  craned  their  necks  and  whispered. 


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WHOM    GOD    HATH    JOINED 


461 


The  day  was  cold  and  clear,  with  a 
brisk  wind — ^a  glittering,,  metallic  day. 
The  calendulas  and  pink  and  white 
chrysanthemums  in  the  Seamans' 
front  yard  were  bravdy  blooming, 
but  they  shivered  pitifully  in  the  wind, 
and  the  yellow  leaves  of  the  willows 
were  falling  with  a  sound  like  soft 
sighs. 

The  little  house  was  full  of  subdued 
and  decorous  motion.  It  was  too  small 
for  the  mourners  to  have  a  separate 
room,  so  they  sat  in  the  parlor  where 
Mary  lay  in  the  sun.  Her  large  hand 
had  been  drawn  from  under  her  cheek 
and  placed,  like  its  feeble  fellow,  stiff 
at  her  side.  Poor  Mary  Seaman  in 
her  coffin,  in  another  than  the  old 
familiar  posture,  would  grow  cramped 
waiting  for  the  Judgment  Day.  Along 
the  wall  sat  her  grandchildren  in  a 
row;  Ikey  and  Lizzie  were  subdued, 
Ellie  was  in  quiet  tears,  Charlie  gazed 
bewildered  from  under  his  red  cap. 
James  Rickenbach  kept  his  eyes  on 
the  ground  and  his  wife  sat  expres- 
sionless and  still,  a  mere  figure-head 
in  crape.  Streams  of  people  passed 
in,  around  the  coffin  and  out,  with  sad 
or  curious  faces.  One  old  woman 
broke  down  and  wept  hysterically. 
**Her  ant  me  vas  girls,"  she  sobbed, 
"ant  I  vas  married  before  she,  but 
her  baby  vas  the  first!"  Out  in  the 
hall  a  child  screamed  when  her  mother 
tried  to  leave  her.  "I  ain'd  seen  it 
yet!  I  vand  to  go  along!"  and  the 
woman  came  in  with  the  little  thing 
clinging  to  her  hand  and  staring  with 
a   foolish  smile. 

Old  Isaac,  sitting  in  a  rocking- 
chair  in  the  comer,  noticed  nothing. 
The  rustle  of  steps  and  whispered 
comments  troubled  him  no  more  than 


the  murmuring  of  the  waters  troubles 
a  wide-eyed  statue  by  the  Nile.  His 
face  was  flushed  and  drawn  and  his 
mouth  bitten  crooked  in  the  sad  gro- 
tesqueness  of  woe.  He  did  not  stir 
at  the  minister*s  voice  or  the  music  of 
the  choir,  but  when  the  service  was 
over  and  the  crowd  in  the  hall  made 
respectful  way  for  the  mourners  he 
rose  decisively  and  left  the  room, 
moving  with  the  steadiness  of  an  in- 
ward vision  that  fills  the  sense  too  full 
for  the  observance  of  petty  things. 
The  coffin  was  carried  out  and  the 
little  procession  followed.  Sallie 
looked  anxiously  for  her  father.  "He 
comes  soon,"  James  whispered.  Ellie 
leaned  upon  Ikey  with  a  sense  of 
the  distinguishing  quality  of  grief, 
and  Lizzie  came  after,  leading  Char- 
lie by  the  hand.  As  they  went  down 
the  walk  a  sudden  gust  covered  the 
coffin  with  golden  willow-leaves.  At 
the  gate  the  big  horses  stood  patiently 
with  the  tassels  of  their  black  nets 
shaking  in  the  wind.  The  door  of 
the  hearse  was  opened.  Just  then, 
around  the  comer  of  the  house  came 
Isaac,  dragging  the  long  cart  with 
the  quilt  still  folded  in  it.  "Set  her 
in  here,"  he  said.  The  bearers  stared 
at  him.  "What's  that?"  one  of  them 
asked.  **Set  her  in  here,"  Isaac  re- 
peated, forestalling  objections  with  a 
preoccupied  man's  impatience  at  the 
raising  of  trivial  issues.  "This  here  is 
her  carriage  ant  I  hauled  her  lige  a 
horse  for  three  years."  Sallie  leaned 
toward  her  father,  her  amazement  for 
the  moment  fairly  transcending  her 
grief.  He  looked  at  her  sternly,  and 
his  voice  sounded  like  a  general's. 
"Don'd  none  of  you  say  nothing.  I 
haul  her  myself."    James  Rickenbach 


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WHOM    GOD    HATH    JOINED 


lifted  his  head.    "Set  her  in,"  said  he. 
"It  is  right." 

Isaac  spread  the  quilt  over  the  bot- 
tom of  the  cart  and  the  coffin  was  set 
upon  it;  he  tucked  the  spare  folds 
carefully  into  the  handles  and  lifted 
the  wagon-tongue.  James  stepped 
toward  him,  but  the  old  man  Waved 
him  back.  "You  go  vith  Sallie,"  he 
said.  Then  he  set  out  with  the  hearse 
behind  him  and  the  carriages,  one  by 
one,  falling  into  line.  The  hard  sun- 
light blazed  on  the  coffin-plate  and 
the  wind  shook  the  dry  brush  in  the 
fence-corners  and  rustled  in  the  sad 
stubble-fields.  Isaac,  with  his  head  up 
and  Tiis  shoulders  very  broad  and 
square,  had  the  steadfast  look  of  a 
faithful  sentinel  on  duty  as  he  paced 
along  with  the  big  black  horses  toss- 
ing their  heads  behind  him.  He  could 
hear  the  tolling  of  the  bell,  heavy 
stroke  upon  stroke,  from  far  down  the 
road. 

Out  among  the  pine-trees  after  the 
sermon  the  preacher's  voice  rose  in 
sonorous  German  phrases,  and  the 
choir  awaited  their  turn.  The  pretty 
soprano  smiled  now  and  then,  for  she 
had  named  her  wedding-day  on  the 
drive  to  the  church  and  her  little  heart 
had  no  more  room  for  sympathetic 
grief  than  a  brimming  wine-glass  has 
for  any  bitter.  She  was  as  happy  as 
Mary  Seaman  had  been,  setting  out 
in  her  red  gown  and  hood  across  the 
sparkling  snow, — Mary  Seaman,  who 
lay  with  her  face  turned  to  the 
sky,  soon  to  be  veiled — how  heavily ! 
"Legen  wir  ihren  Leib  in  Gottes 
Acker,"  read  the  preacher,  "Erde  zu 
Erde,  Asche  zu  Asche,  Staub  zu 
Staub,"  the  words  fell  like  weights, 
"in  sicherer  und  gewisser  Hoffnung 


der  Auferstehung — "  The  pine- 
branches  waved,  scattering  their  rich 
sweetness.  There  was  a  sound  of 
weeping,  and  Sallie  at  the  foot  of  the 
coffin  trembled  under  her  black  veil. 
Old  Isaac  stood  beside  his  wife,  but 
he  did  not  look  at  her;  his  eyes  were 
on  the  impassive  earth.  There  was  a 
little  water  at  the  bottom  of  the  grave. 
Soon  he  must  leave  his  wife  in  the 
weather.  When  the  coffin-lid  was 
screwed  down  he  moved  aside  quietly 
and  the  choir  raised  a  hymn. 

*'0  Welt,  ich  muss  dich  lassen, 
Ich  fahr  dahin  mein  Strassen 
Ins  cwig  Vaterland. 

"Mein  Zeit  iit  nun  vollendet 
Der  Tod  das  Leben  schandet 
Sterben  ist  mein  Gewinn." 

There  was  a  slight  splash  as  it 
touched  the  bottom.  Then  the  first 
earth  fell.  Isaac  followed  the  little 
clods  with  his  eyes  as  some  of  them 
rebounded  from  the  lid.  The  people 
on  the  edge  of  the  crowd  began  to 
move  away. 

The  old  man  stood  silent.  The  cof- 
fin was  covered  with  yellow  earth.  A 
sparrow  twittered  in  one  of  the  pine- 
trees.    The  prayer  was  finished. 

Sallie  went  to  him.  "Come,  Pop," 
she  pleaded,  her  voice  all  hoarse  with 
crying,  "come  vith."  He  did  not  stir 
"Come  vith.  Pop.  Ve  go  now."  She 
pulled  his  sleeve,  and  he  moved  as 
though  suddenly  awakened.  Just  be- 
hind him  was  the  long  cart  with  the 
quilt  dragging  over  the  edge,  and  his 
arm  stnick  it  as  he  turned.  At  the 
sight  of  the  empty  thing  with  its  gay 
drapery  all  fallen  into  helpless  folds 
the  old  man's  chin  worked;  he  burst 
into  rough  sobs  and  let  his  daughter 
lead  him  away. 


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Aunt  Betsey  Washington 


My  Experiences  Photographing  the 
Negro  in  the  South 


By  John  H.  Tarbell 


Editor's  Note: — There  is  probably  no  photographer  in  the  country  who  has  made 
such  a  success  in  photographing  the  Southern  negro  in  hfs  home  surroundings  as  has 
Mr.  Tarbell.  His  artistic  taste  shows  itself  in  his  clever  selection  and  posing  of  subjects, 
while  the  results  give  an  admirably  correct  portraiture  of  life  as  it  actually  exists  among 
these  people,  so  interesting  in  their  quaint  and  homely  ways. 


DURING  a  period  of  nearly 
seven  years  spent  in  the 
Southern  States  and  else- 
where, but  principally  in 
that  region  known  as  the  Asheville 
Plateau,  North  Carolina,  I  became  pho- 
tographically interested  in  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  negroes,  and  made  a 


specialty  of  portraying  them  in  their 
various  occupations  as  well  as  in  en- 
deavoring to  represent  pictorially  the 
humorous  aspect  of  their  nature.  It 
is  my  intention  in  the  following  arti- 
cle to  give  some  of  my  personal  ex- 
periences in  that  direction,  though 
my    endeavor    must,    necessarily,    be 

463 


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Washing  Day  in  Dixie 


fragmentary,  covering,  as  it  does, 
several  years'  residence  in  the  South. 
My  greatest  difficulty  has  always 
lieen  to  persuade  the  colored  people 
to  be  photographed  in  their  pictur- 
esque, every-day  costumes,  and  it  has 
464 


always  required  the  greatest  tact  to 
convince  them  that  it  was  not  from  a 
desire  to  ridicule  any  peculiarities  of 
the  race ;  but  their  suspicions  are 
easily  aroused  and  only  by  the  most 
persuasive  eloquence  has  it  been  pos- 


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PHOTOGRAPHING  THE  NEGRO  IN  THE  SOUTH 


465 


sible*,    in   many  cases,    to    overcome 
their  native  distrust. 

In  this  respect,  however,  the  negro 
does  not  differ  materially  from  some 
of  his  white  neighbors  of  the  poorer 
class,  and  being  to  a  large  extent  imi" 
iaiive,  he  tries  to  copy  the  habits  and 
dress  of  the  white  people  especially 
on  those  occasions  when  he  is  desired 
for  photographic  purposes.  Perhaps 
it  is  safe  to  say  that  the  average  negro 
does  not  differ  essentially  from  his 
white  neighbors,  some  being  obliging, 
friendly  and  intelligent,  while  others 
are  sullen,  suspicious  and  ignorant. 

Possibly  it  may  not  be  generally 
known  that  the  colored  people  are  dif- 
ficult to  please  in  the  matter  of  por- 
traiture, that  is  to  say,  when  taking 
a  portrait  solely  to  satisfy  the  individ- 
ual, and  not  making  any  effort  to 
please  one's  personal  fancy.  As  a 
rule,  they  think  the  photograph  looks 
*'too  dark/' — consequently  great  care 
has  to  be  exercised  to  make  as  light 
a  print  as  possible, — the  mouth,  too, 
is  a  source  of  annoyance  (perhaps  my 
white  reader  has  experienced  similar 
difficulty),  while  the  nose  is  also  an 
offending  member.  In  fact,  the  great- 
est skill  of  the  retoucher's  art  is  often 
required  in  smoothing  out  coarse  feat- 
ures, shortening  objectionable  mouths 
and  in  making  a  flat  nose  more 
aquiline. 

It  has  been  said  that  the  negro  is 
imitative ;  this  is  often  seen  in  the  lit- 
tle pleasantries  vouchsafed  to  the 
photographer,  lx)th  before  and  after 
sitting  for  a  portrait,  stale  witticisms 
and  obsolete  jokes,  which  must  be  re- 
ceived pleasantly  and  with  an  approv- 
ing grin,  although  the  same  man's 
chatter  may  have  been  heard  for  the 


five-hundredth  time.  Fortunately  for 
me,  it  was  seldom  that  I  attempted  to 
produce  anything  that  would  prove 
satisfactory  to  the  ladies  of  color 
themselves,  my  preferences  being  for 
the  "old-time  mammies,"  now  so 
rapidly  passing  away,  but  strange 
to  say  it  was  often  with  the  great- 
est difficulty  that  I  could  persuade 
them  to  pose  for  me  in  the  at- 
titude which  seemed  to  me  the  most 
characteristic,  especially  if  it  was  for 
the  purpose  of  depicting  any  occupa- 
tion or  any  menial  attitude.  The  re- 
quest for  such  a  pose  usually  aroused 
suspicion,  and  it  was  at  once  inferred 
that  they  were  being  "guyed." 

During  one  of  my  rambles  for  sub- 
jects, I  chanced  to  see  a  picturesque 
old  negress  sitting  on  the  porch  of  her 
cabin.  Her  head  was  decorated  with 
a  gaily  colored  handkerchief.  The 
other  garments  were  worn  but  charm- 
ingly effective  and  appealed  strongly 
to  my  sense  of  the  artistic  value  of 
such  a  scene.  In  fact,  the  whole 
scheme  of  color,  from  the  vine-covered 
porch,  with  flowers  of  various  hues 
interpersed,  together  with  the  striking 
figure  of  the  old  woman,  as  the  cen- 
tre and  point  of  interest,  impressed 
me  as  being  unusually  pleasing. 

I  approached  timidly  and  said: 
"Aunty,  will  you  allow  me  to  take  your 
picture  on  that  porch?  Til  pay  you 
for  your  trouble." 

Immediately,  her  head  went  up  in 
the  air,  and  with  a  snort  of  indigna- 
tion .she  replied :  "No,  boss,  when  1 
lias  my  likeness  took,  I'se  g'wine  to  a 
gallery,  I  is." 

Neither  i:)ersuasion  nor  entreaty 
was  of  any  avail,  and  I  was  obliged 
to  relinquish  my  attempt. 


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A  Page  of  History 

A66 


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PHOTOGRAPHING   THE    NEGRO    IN    THE   SOUTH 


467 


At  another  time  I  chanced  to  run 
across  a  woman  in  the  act  of  washing 
clothing.  She  was  standing  near  a 
huge  iron  kettle,  under  which  was  a 
lire,  and  she  occasionally  moved  the 
clothes  aroimd  with  a  long  stick, — the 
water  in  the  kettle,  of  course,  being 
kept  at  a  high  temperature  by  the  fire 
imderneath. 

I  ventured  to  ask  her  to  allow  me 
to  photograph  her  in  that  particular 
attitude,  to  which  she  demurred,  but 
said  she  would  be  willing  to  stand  be- 
side the  kettle  and  be  "took."  By 
dint  of  much  urging,  however,  and 
the  offer  of  money  she  at  last  over- 
came her  repugnance,  and  grasping 
the  long  stick,  bent  over  the  kettle  in 
the  correct  position,  being  photo- 
graphed in  the  act. 

It  is  only  fair  to  state  that  while 
many  of  the  negroes  are  averse  to 
being  photographed,  there  are  a  few 
to  be  found  now  and  then  who  seem 
to  understand  the  whys  and  where- 
fores of  illustrative  art,  and  who  are 
willing  to  do  all  in  their  power  (for  a. 
consideration)  to  aid  the  photogra- 
pher in  his  endeavors.  Some  of  my 
best  models  have  been  discovered 
among  the  more  intelligent  class,  who 
entered  with  great  zest  into  the  spirit 
of  the  occasion,  and  did  their  utmost 
to  represent  the  ideas  intended  to  be 
conveyed. 

A  negro  preacher,  and  it  need 
hardly  be  added,  an  admirer  of  the 
great  Lincoln,  made  an  excellent 
model  for  a  study  which  has  been  en- 
titled, "A  Page  of  History."  The  ac- 
companying illustration  represents  the 
aged  preacher,  examining  two  por- 
traits of  the  martyr  President  in 
McClure's  Magazine, — the  history  be- 


ing that  written  by  Miss  Ida  M.  Tar- 
bell  some  years  since. 

The  negro  minister,  as  a  rule,  is 
uneducated,  but  it  sometimes  occurs 
that  h.e  possesses  a  most  wonderful 
power  over  his  hearers.  One  in  par- 
ticular is  recalled  at  the  present  time : 
viz.,  Pastor  Rumley,  who  preached  an 
extraordinary  sermon  on  "De  Valley 
ob  de  Dry  Bones."  This  discourse 
brought  him  quite  a  reputation  in  his 
native  town,  and  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  repeating  it  at  various  times  and 
with  many  embellishments. 

Unfortunately,  it  was  not  my  good 
fortune  to  hear  this  remarkable  ser- 
mon, but  I  attended  another  of  his  ser- 
vices on  a  certain  Sunday  and  wit- 
nessed the  most  emotional  proceed- 
ings which  it  has  ever  been  my  lot  to 
see.  During  the  sermon  the  preacher 
worked  himself  up  into  a  frenzy  of 
excitement.  His  hearers  shouted, 
howled  and  yelled  unintelligible  jar- 
gon, they  danced  and  grew  hysterical, 
while  one  woman,  with  a  wild  scream, 
suddenly  rushed  across  the  aisle  of 
the  church,  almost  displacing  the  long 
piping  of  the  stove  as  she  continued 
her  gyrations.  Swaying  backward, 
she  flopped  into  th^  lap  of  one  of  the 
colored  brothers,  while  another  coolly 
re-adjusted  the  stove  funnel.  At  this 
stage  of  the  proceedings,  one  of  the 
sisters  approached  the  demonstrative 
member,  and  dragged  her  back  to  her 
former  seat,  where  she  remained, 
limp  and  exhausted,  until  the  close  of 
the  service. 

Soon  a  voice  started  the  familiar 
strain  of  "Roll,  Jordan,  Roll."  Im- 
mediately it  was  caught  up  and  sung 
by  the  congregation  with  a  wild  free- 
dom, pathos,  and  melody.     After  the 


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PHOTOGRAPHING   THE    NEGRO    IN    THE    SOUTH 


"  Traid  I'll  Break  de  Glass" 


insufficient.  After  an  urgent  ap- 
peal from  the  pastor,  the  hats  were 
sent  around  for  the  third  time,  and 
the  change  having  been  carefully 
counted,  the  sum  was  declared  enough 
and  to  spare.  Another  hymn  was 
sung,  the  benediction  given,  and  the 
audience  dispersed. 

It    was    noticed    that    the    colored 


youths  lined  up  just  outside  the  door- 
way, and  gracefully  removed  their 
hats  as  the  dusky  maidens  with 
whom  they  were  acquainted  i^ssed 
out. 

As  previously  stated,  the  last  few 
years  of  my  life  have  been  spent  in 
the  vicinity  of  Asheville,  North  Caro- 
lina, but  it  has  been  possible  occasion- 


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"Say,  Boss,  Can't  You  Spare  a  Few  Pennies?" 


ally  to  visit  other  sections  of  the  South, 
while  more  recently  an  entire  winter 
was  spent  in  the  Bahamas,  where  the 
negro  element  largely  predominates. 
The  prevailing  characteristics  of  the 
race,  however,  appear  to  be  about  the 
same  wherever  they  are  found. 

At  Nassau,  the  capital,  it  seems  to 


me,  one  notices  more  independence  of 
manner,  and  an  impudence  at  times 
not  altogether  pleasing  to  the  Ameri- 
can tourist,  but  this  little  Island  of 
New  Providence,  though  scarcely  dis- 
cernible upon  the  ordinary  map,  is  a 
British  Possession,  and,  apparently  the 
average  darkey  there  enjoys  the  dis- 


469 


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Bahama  Cabin  with  Thatched  Roof 


tinction  of  having  a  tilt  with  Uncle 
Sam  now  and  tlien.  This  he  accom- 
plishes in  various  ways,  sometimes  by 
overcharging,  sometimes  by  lying,  and 
sometimes  by  a  torrent  of  invective, 
for  many  of  them  are  among  the  sauci- 
est and  most  vindictive  of  their  race. 
Here,  as  in  the  United  States,  the 
negro  is  very  religious  (in  spots),  but 
the  facility  with  which  many  of  them 
attend  church  on  Sunday,  and  over- 
charge the  Yankees  on  Monday,  is 
painfully  evident.  In  the  latter  re- 
spect, however,  they  are  fully  equalled 
by  their  white  neighbors,  the  average 
Bahamian   considering  it  a  religious 

470 


duty  to  charge  the  visitors  about  three 
times  as  much  for  an  article,  or  a  ser- 
vice performed,  as  he  would  one  of 
his  own  countrymen.  Possibly  the 
Americans  are  largely  responsible  for 
this  state  of  things,  for  doubtless 
many  of  them  are  lavish  in  their  ex- 
penditures, giving  the  natives  the  im- 
pression that  all  Amercans  are  fabu- 
lously wealthy. 

It  may  also  be  true  that  the  **snap- 
shot  fiend"  has  done  a  great  deal 
towards  antagonizing  the  negro  ele- 
ment in  regard  to  photographing  his 
person.  The  accompanying  illustration 
represents  a  tourist  from  the  "States" 


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JusTiNA  Exhibiting  Her  Picture  of  Queen  Victoria 


in  an  endeavor  .  to  photograph  a 
woman  and  child  in  the  streets  of 
Nassau  with  his  kodak — this  incident 
being  one  of  many  which  I  witnessed 
during  my  visit. 

'*  Traid  Fll  break  de  glass,"  saixl 
the  shiny-faced  native. 

"Oh,  no,  you  won't,"  said  the  bluff 
old  major  from  the  States,  in  as  sooth- 
ing a  tone  as  he  was  capable  of  utter- 
ing. "What  are  you  afraid  of  ?  Keep 
quiet  a  minute." 

Snap! — and  the  smiling  counte- 
nance is  perpetuated,  and  doubtless 
the  counterfeit  presentment  served  to 
entertain  numerous  friends  and  rela- 
tives for  successive  months  thereafter. 

Although  the  negro  of  the  Bahamas 
takes  great  pride  in  calling  himself  a 


P.ritish  subject,  many  of  them  do  not 
hesitate  to  ask  alms  of  Uncle  Sam 
on  every  possible  occasion,  a  common 
practice  being  to  approach  a  group  of 
Americans  on  the  street,  and  raise  the 
hat  with  one  hand,  extending  the 
other  at  the  same  time,  with  the  re- 
quest, "Say,  boss,  can't  you  spare  a 
few  pennies?" 

As  has  been  said  the  Bahama  negro 
is  an  adept  at  extorting  money  from 
the  tourist.  Talk  about  "Yankee 
shrewdness," — it  is  nothing  as  com- 
pared to  the  cunning  evinced  by  the 
native  of  Nassau,  the  capital.  The 
safest  plan,  when  desiring  any  service 
performed,  is  always  to  make  the  bar- 
gain in  advance,  but  even  this  precau- 
tion is  often  insufficient  to  prevent  a 


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Street    Urchins 


wrangle  after  it  is  tinishcd, — the  only 
too  common  practice  being  to  scan 
the  money  given  ( as  previously 
agreed  upon),  turn  it  over  several 
times,  and  with  a  contemptuous  look, 
refuse  to  accept  so  small  an  amount. 
The  only  thing  to  be  done,  under  such 
circumstances,  is  to  leave,  paying  no 
attention  to  the  abuse  which  follows. 
A  certain  section  of  the  Island  of 
New  Providence  is  inhabited  almost 
exclusively  by  the  colored  people, 
and  is  known  as  Grant's  Town.  Here 
many  of  them  live  in  very  primitive 
cabins,  with  thatched  roofs. 

472 


Passing  one  of  these  on  a  certain 
day,  my  attention  was  called  to  an 
aged  negress  sitting  on  the  porch,  and 
on  entering  into  conversation,  she  told 
me  her  history,  which  was  briefly  as 
follows:  She  had  belonged  to  the 
Yuraba  tribe  of  Africans,  and  when  a 
child  in  her  native  wilds,  during  a 
desperate  encounter  between  hostile 
tribes,  w^as  captured,  and  afterward 
sold  to  a  company  of  Portuguese  slave 
traders.  The  little  girl,  together  with  a 
number  of  other  captives,  was  hurried  to 
the  sea  coast,  placed  on  board  a  slave 
ship,  driven  into  the  hold,  and  carried 


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PHOTOGRAPHING   THE    NEGRO    IN   THE   SOUTH 


473 


Stop,  Thief 


She  is  now  an  old  woman,  but  has 
a  vivid  recollection  of  all  the  early 
events  connected  with  her  childhood, 
and  has  the  greatest  admiration  for 
the  late  Queen  Victoria.  More  than 
once  she  exclaimed  with  great  fervor, 
*'God  bless  dat  Queen." 

Going  inside  her  cabin,  she  re- 
turned with  a  large  picture  of  Queen 
Victoria,  which  had  been  given  to  her 
by  some  white  people  and  which  she 
exhibited  with  great  pride. 

But  to  return  once  more  to  the  ne- 
groes of  the  Southern  States. 

The  children  there,  as  a  rule,  are 
less  averse  to  being  photographed 
than  the  older  people, — this  seems  to 


be  the  case  in  all  sections  of  the  coun- 
try, though  it  frequently  occurs  that 
the  least  picturesque  specimens  are  the 
most  anxious  to  be  *'tooken."  The 
two  little  waifs  in  the  act  of  emerging 
from  the  hollow  trunk  of  a  tree  were 
willing  subjects,  but  doubtless  their 
parents,  had  they  been  present,  would 
have  objected  strongly  to  their  being 
taken  in  any  such  position.  Their 
desire,  probably,  would  have  been  to 
have  their  young  offspring  dressed  in 
the  latest  fashion,  and  either  sitting 
or  standing  in  the  conventional  atti- 
tude and  staring  at  the  camera, — this 
of  course  to  be  accompanied  by  one  of 
the    usual     horrors,     a     fantastically 


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Children  of  the  Soil 
474 

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PHOTOGRAPHING   THE    NgGRO    IN    THE   SOUTH 


475 


painted  background.  Here,  again,  we 
see  the  imitative  faculty  of  the  race, 
for  how  often  the  fond  white  parents 
are  satisfied  only  when  their  second 
editions  are  represented  in  frills  and 
feathers  or  in  stiff,  starchy  clothing, 
which  must  all  be  done  in  the  con- 
ventional studio  with  a  ''skylight.'' 

As  has  been  intimated  before,  the 
colored  people  are  very  anxious  to  ap- 
pear as  light  as  possible  in  their  pic- 
tures, and  after  I  had  learned  this 
fact,  it  was  seldom  that  I  ventured  to 
show  any  of  my  studies  to  those  who 
had  posed  for  me.  During  the  earlier 
portion  of  my  visit  to  the  South,  I  had 
made  the  mistake  of  freely  exhibiting 
my  pictures  to  my  dusky  models. 

I  have  in  mind  the  mother  of  a 
most  interesting  little  pickaninny, 
whose  portrait  T  had  taken  solely  to 
please  myself,  and  which  I  afterward 
showed  to  its  mother. 

A  look  of  disappointment  over- 
spread her  face  and  she  remarked 
with  a  sigh,  "Oh,  so  dark,  I  don't 
want  it." 

PYequently  a  crowd  of  colored  ur- 
chins have  followed  me  long  dis- 
tances, earnestly  requesting  to  be 
photographed,  and  with  such  remarks 
as,  "Say,  boss,  draw  me  off,  will  yer?'' 
"Say,  Mister,  wan't  ter  take  me 
standin'  on  my  head?"  "G'wine 
sketchin',  boss?"  and  the  like. 

It  may  sometimes  happen  that  an 
unusually  tattered  but  picturesque 
specimen  in  the  crowd  is  selected,  and 
is  requested  to  serve  as  a  model,  but 
very  likely  he  or  she  will  obstinately 
refuse,  while  a  dozen  perhaps  of  the 
least  desirable  will  spring  forward, 
earnestly  requesting  to  be  "tooken." 

Occasionally  the  ill-dressed  urchins 
will  shout,  "You  uns  wants  ter  put 


my  likeness  in  a  winder  and  sell  it, 
you  does!" 

This  is  a  crusher,  and  is  supposed 
to  annihilate  the  aspiring  and  per- 
spiring photographer. 

While,  as  a  general  rule,  it  has  been 
my  practice  to  portray  the  negro  at 
his  best,  or  rather  as  representing 
him  engaged  in  some  honorable  oc- 
cupation, I  must  frankly  admit  that  it 
has  seemed  necessary,  now  and  then, 
to  depict  him  at  his  worst,  both  to 
please  a  certain  public  taste,  and  for 
pecuniary  reasons  as  well. 

When  this  has  been  attempted,  it 
has  been  found  desirable  to  make  a 
diligent  search  for  models  who  had 
no  objection  to  being  represented  in 
any  scene  I  might  select,  provided 
they  were  well  paid  for  their  services. 

In  the  illustration  entitled  "Stop, 
Thief!"  an  attempt  has  been  made  to 
represent  the  weakness  that  some 
members  of  the  colored  race  have  for 
the  luscious  watermelon,  and  the 
scene  is  supposed  to  portray  a  sneak 
thief  in  the  act  of  escaping  through  a 
fence  surrounding  a  yard  which  con- 
tains the  juicy  fruit. 

The '  next  scene  shows  the  culprit 
after  his  arrival  home,  where  he 
ravenously  devours  the  stolen  melons. 
His  little  brother  gazes  longingly 
but  sadly  at  the  disappearing  melon, 
not  being  allowed  to  share  a  single 
morsel. 

These  records  of  my  work  would 
seem  to  be  incomplete  without  an  at- 
tempt to  illustrate  the  negro  from  a 
sentimental  point  of  view,  and  it  gives 
me  great  pleasure  to  be  able  to  do 
this. 

On  one  of  those  rare  spring  morn- 
ings, often  seen  in  the  sunny  South, 
there   called    at   my    studio   a   young 


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o 
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o 

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PHOTOGRAPHING  THE  NEGRO  IN  THE  SOUTH 


negro  of  perhaps  eighteen  years  of 
age.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  young 
colored  girl  of  about  the  same  age. 
Both  were  the  darkest  specimens  of 
their  race  that  I  had  ever  seen,  and 
gave  their  names  as  Tom  and  Lily. 

After  some  little  conversation,  they 
admitted  that  they  intended  to  get 
married  in  a  few  weeks,  and  wanted 
to  know  if  I  would  take  their  *' like- 
nesses'* for  them,  **togedder,  if  yer 
please,  boss." 

Seeing  that  they  were  admirably 
adapted  to  picture  a  scene  which  I  had 
often  longed  to  portray,  viz.,  the  old, 
old  story  of  love,  1  agreed  to  give 
them  a  picture  if  they  would  allow  me 
to  photograph  them  just  as  I  wished, 
for  my  own  especial  purpose.  They 
readily  consented  to  this,  and  they 
were  posed  in  the  attitude  of  two 
bashful  lovers, — the  youth  gazing 
rather  sheepishly  at  his  sweetheart, 
and  she  responding  by  a  similar 
glance. 

The  result  is  seen  in  the  illustration 
entitled,  "The  Wooing  O't."  After  vari- 
ous poses  of  a  similar  character, 
several  exposures  were  made,  of 
a  nature  calculated  to  suit  their  own 
personal  wishes,  care  being  taken  to 
have  the  resultant  prints  several  shades 
lighter  than  the  subjects  appeared  in 
nature!  The  results  were  highly 
pleasing  to  Tom  and  Lily;  and  it  is 
perhaps  needless  to  say  that  the  pic- 
tures designed  especially  for  my  own 
satisfaction  were  never  shown  to 
them  1 

Tom  and  Lily  were  very  friendly 
after  this  episode,  and  used  to  call  fre- 
quently at  my  studio, — especially  the 
former.  On  one  occasion,  when 
coming  alone  to  borrow  (?)  a  nickel, 
he  frankly  related  to  me  the  story  of 


his  courtship,  which  was  substari- 
tially  as  follows,  told  in  Tom's  own 
words : 

"I  says  to  her,  says  I,  *Lir,  I'se 
got  right  smart  ob  a  leetle  patch  o' 
ground  ober  yander.  an'  Tse  got  a 
good  many  sweet  'taters,  a  good 
many  beans,  an'  a  lot  o*  com,  an'  I 
reckon  I'se  g'wine  to  get  married  nex' 
fall, — an' — an' — 77/  marry  you  if  you 
hike:  " 

Lir  did  not  blush,  but  like  a  wise 
woman,  she  reflected, — then  she  re- 
plied :  **Tom,  you'se  mighty  suddent, 
an'  I'se  g'wine  to  study  ober  it  for  a 
spell." 

And  study  over  it  she  did. 

Tom  came  the  second  time  and 
pressed  his  suit. 

**Now,  Lil'/'  said  he,  *'I  specs 
you'se  g'wine  ter  gib  me  an  anser  to- 
day." 

But  Lil'  only  assumed  an  air  of  re- 
serve and  simply  replied,  "Oh,  I  don't 
know." 

Tom  was  in  despair  and  went  away. 
However,  he  returned  to  the  attack 
for  the  third  time,  on  this  occasion 
using  strategic  measures  to  accom- 
plish his  purpose. 

"Lir,"  said  he,  "if  you'se  don't  an- 
ser to-day,  I'se  g'wine  ter  marry 
Rosie:' 

This  vigorous  action  on  Tom's 
part  was  entirely  successful,  and  Lil' 
surrendered,  only  stipulating  that  she 
should  be  presented  with  a  new  calico 
dress,  "with  yaller  flowers  on  it,"  in 
time  for  the  marriage  ceremony. 

A  few  weeks  after  this  occurrence 
they  were  united  in  the  holy  bonds  of 
matrimony,  but  I  am  unable  to  state 
whether  their  union  has  been  a  happy 
one,  my  duties  having  since  called  me 
to  another  section  of  the  countrv. 


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The  Ups  and  Downs  of  Christmas 
in  New  England 


By  Abram  English  Brown 


IN  no  part  of  the  world  does  the 
benediction  first  heralded  over  the 
plains  of  Bethlehem,  "On  earth 
peace,  good  will  toward  men," 
find  more  complete  exemplification 
than  in  New  England,  where  the 
greatest  struggle  was  waged  against 
Christmas.  It  is  not  yet  a  half  cen- 
tury since  the  twenty-fifth  day  of  De- 
cember was  legally  recognized  as  a 
holiday  in  the  Bay  State^  and  it  is  less 
time  since  Christmas  Day  came  to 
have  general  recognition. 
•  At  our  New  England  Christmas  we 
have  a  strange  blending  of  the  Chris- 
tian and  anti-Christian  customs  and 
feelings.  They  are  so  interwoven 
that  it  is  difficult  to  tell  where  the 
paganism  ends  and  the  Christian  be- 
gins, and  because  of  this  complexity 
we  may  have  more  patience  with  our 
Puritan  ancestors  who  fought  so  per- 
sistently against  the  observance  of 
Christmas  on  these  shores.  Those 
English  Puritans  separated  from  the 
English  Church  because  "they  could 
not  have  the  word  freely  preached  and 
the  sacraments  administered  without 
idolatrous  gear."  It  was  rather  the 
abuse  than  the  observance  of  Christ- 
mas that  so  embittered  them  and 
prompted  them  to  use  all  means  in 
their  power  to  prevent  any  appearance 
of  Christmas  observance  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic. 

There  is  a  strange  irony  of  fate  in 


the  arrival  of  the  Pilgrims  at  Plym- 
outh at  the  very  season  when  the  gen- 
erous and  humane  holiday  was  ob- 
served at  home  in  Old  England.  It 
was  as  if  an  opportunity  was  fur- 
nished them  to  thus  early  stamp  their 
contempt  for  the  chief  feast  of  the 
Church,  against  which  their  volun- 
tary exile  was  a  most  positive  protest 
This,  however,  was  done  negatively, 
for  they  make  no  mention  of  the  day 
as  distinct  from  others. 

The  Pilgrims,  having  decided  where 
to  start  their  Plymouth  settlement, 
set  to  work  to  prepare  timber.  Sun- 
day dawned  upon  their  toil,  and  al- 
though they  had  no  shelter  on  land, 
there  was  no  stroke  of  work  upon  the 
Lord's  day.  The  following  day — 
Monday  —  they  were  ready  to  begin 
work  on  their  first  house.  It  was 
Christmas  Day,  a  day  of  memories  to 
some  of  the  company,  we  may  imag- 
ine, a  day  of  comparisons,  possibly  of 
r^rets,  but  with  the  leaders  we  may 
fancy  a  day  of  renewal  of  their  deter- 
mined purpose. 

Bradford  makes  the  simple  record, 
and  thus  closes  his  first  book:  "And 
ye  25  day  begane  to  erecte  ye  first 
house  for  comone  use  to  receive  them 
and  their  goods."  Mourt,  who  was 
more  inclined  to  give  details,  says: 
"Mounday,  the  25  day,  we  went  on 
shore,  some  to  fell  tymber,  some  to 
taw,  some  to  rive,  and  some  to  carry, 


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THE   UPS  AND   DOWNS   OF 


so  no  man  rested  all  that  day."  Hub- 
bard says:  "They  were  as  cheerfully 
employed  in  building  their  first  house 
for  common  use  as  their  friends  else- 
where about  their  cheer  according  to 
the  custom  of  the  day."  When  all 
other  Christians  throughout  the  world 
had  come  to  a  halt,  this  little  band  of 
Pilgrims  entered  their  strongest  pro- 
test by  unremitting  labor,  but  with 
the  going  down  of  the  sun  there  came 
a  change,  according  to  Mourt,  who 
says:  "Mounday,  the  25,  being  Christ- 
masday,  we  began  to  drinke  water 
aboard,  but  at  night  the  master  caused 
us  to  have  some  Beere."  According 
to  the  records,  the  supply  with  which 
they  had  left  England  had  run  low, 
and  the  company  had  been  put  upon 
water,  but  at  the  close  of  this  Christ- 
mas Day  were  granted  one  privilege, 
that  of  a  mug  of  beer.  Conscience 
forbade  them  the  traditional  pie  and 
customary  carol,  but  in  the  draught  of 
beer  they  carried  on  the  Christmas 
traditions. 

The  Puritans,  although  indomitable 
and  self-sacrificing,  were  men  and 
lovers.  They  had  tender  sympathies 
and  affections  which  were  aroused  by 
certain  days  and  associations.  Brad- 
ford would  not  stain  his  page  with  the 
word  Christmas,  but  it  was  a  day  too 
hallowed,  too  long  associated  with 
pleasant  memories,  to  be  wholly 
disregarded  by  men  and  women  reared 
in  OM  England,  and  whose  hearts, 
despite  themselves,  must  have  turned 
homeward  on  that  great  day  of  reli- 
gious remembrances. 

Before  a  twelvemonth  the  pioneers 
of  Plymouth  had  learned  that  the  At- 
lantic was  not  broad  enough  to  keep 
away  the  English  holiday  sentiment, 
although  they  longer  suppressed  the 


outward  demonstration.  In  Novem- 
ber, 1 62 1,  about  a  year  after  the  May- 
flower cast  anchor,  came  the  little  ship. 
Fortune,  of  fifty-five  tons,  bringing  a 
most  welcome  addition  to  the  settle- 
ment. Of  this  new  company  Brad- 
ford records:  "Most  of  them  were 
lusty  yonge  men,  and  many  of  them 
wild  enough,"  and  proceeds  to  say: 
"  And  herewith  I  shall  end  this  year. 
Only  I  shall  remember  one  passage 
more,  rather  of  mirth  than  of  weight. 
On  ye  day  called  Christmas  Day  ye 
Gov'r  called  them  out  to  worke  (as 
was  used),  but  ye  most  of  this  new 
company  excused  themselves  and  said 
it  wente  against  their  consciences  to 
work  on  yt  day.  So  ye  Gov'r  tould 
them  that  if  they  made  it  a  mater  of 
conscience  he  would  spare  them  till 
they  were  better  informed.  So  he  led 
away  ye  rest  and  left  them ;  but  when 
they  came  home  at  noone  from  their 
worke,  he  found  them  in  ye  streete  at 
play,  openly,  some  pitching  ye  base, 
and  some  at  stoole-ball,  and  such  like 
sports.  So  he  went  to  them,  and  tooke 
away  their  implements,  and  tould 
them  that  was  against  his  conscience, 
that  they  should  play  and  others 
worke.  If  they  made  ye  keeping  of  it  a 
mater  of  devotion,  let  them  kepe  their 
houses,  but  there  should  be  no  gaming 
or  revelling  in  ye  streets,  since  which 
time  nothing  hath  atempted  that  way, 
at  least  openly." 

This  severe  management  was  only 
one  of  the  methods  adopted  by  the 
Puritan  leaders  to  purify  religion.  As 
there  were  divisions  among  those  re- 
formers in  England,  so  there  were  on 
these  shores,  and  their  methods  for 
controlling  the  companies  of  settlers 
were  unlike.  The  Pilgrims  at  Plym- 
outh were  Independents  and  always 


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CHRISTMAS   IN   NEW   ENGLAND 


481 


manifested  a  certain  tolerance  which 
was  not  practised  in  the  Bay  G)lony 
by  the  Nonconformists  who  settled  at 
Salem  and  Boston.  Winthrop,  the 
leader  of  the  Bay  Colony,  is  as  silent 
on  the  subject  of  Christmas  as  Brad- 
ford. In  both  colonies  no  doubt  there 
was  great  rejoicing  when  it  became 
known  that  in  June,  1647,  Parliament 
abolished  the  observance  of  saints' 
days  and  "the  three  grand  fes- 
tivals" of  Christmas,  Easter  and 
Whitsuntide,  "any  law,  statute,  cus- 
tom, constitution  or  canon  to  the 
contrary  in  any  wise  notwithstand- 
ing." This  was  a  victory  for  the 
party  aiming  at  the  purification  of 
religion  on  these  shores,  as  well  as  in 
England. 

For  the  next  twelve  years  we  may 
believe  that  Christmas  festivities  were 
entirely  abolished,  but  the  spirit  was 
still  abroad,  and  the  leaders  in  the 
Bay  Colony  determined  to  sustain  the 
anti-sentiment  by  enacting  a  statute 
whereby  offenders  could  be  brought 
to  judgment.  They  enacted  a  law 
against  it  in  1659.  It  is  styled  a  law 
for  "preventing  disorders  arising  in 
several  places  within  this  jurisdiction 
by  reason  of  some  still  observing  such 
festivals  as  are  superstitiously  kept 
in  other  countries  to  the  great  dis- 
honor of  God  and  offence  of  others, — 
it  is  therefore  ordered  by  this  Court 
and  the  authority  thereof  that  whoso- 
ever shall  be  found  observing  any 
such  day  as  Christmas  or  the  like, 
either  by  forbearing  of  labors,  feasting 
or  any  other  way,  upon  any  such  ac- 
counts as  aforesaid,  every  such  per- 
son so  offending  shall  pay  for  every 
such  offence  five  shillings  as  a  fine  to 
the  county."  This  law  remained  on  the 
statute-book  until  1681,  when  it  was 


repealed,  but  the  repeal  was  bitter  to 
old  I'uritanism. 

Judge  Samuel  Sewall,  in  the  con- 
scientious discharge  of  his  duties, 
guarded  the  morals  of  the  people  with 
studied  care,  and  to  his  records  we  are 
indebted  for  the  movements  of  the 
period.  Four  years  after  the  repeal 
of  the  law  he  records:  "Dec.  25, 
1685.  Carts  came  to  town  and  shops 
open  as  usual.  Some,  somehow  ob- 
serve the  day,  but  are  vexed,  I  be- 
lieve, that  the  Body  of  people  profane 
it,  and  blessed  be  God  no  authority 
yet  to  compel  them  to  keep  it."  The 
next  year  the  shops  and  the  carts  give 
this  dignitary  great  pleasure  again. 

Judge  Sewall  was  greatly  annoyed 
by  an  act  of  the  General' Court  of 
1677,  whereby  no  one  should  be  hin- 
dered from  performing  the  Episcopal 
service,  but  did  his  part  in  keeping 
public  opinion  repugnant  to  it,  yet 
he  met  with  an  official  rebuff  when, 
in  1686,  through  the  influence  of  An- 
dros,  the  first  clergyman  of  that  faith 
appeared  in  New  England,— Robert 
Ratcliffe, — who  came  in  the  frigate 
Rose.  Andros  appeared  in  his  sup- 
port. He  landed  December  20,  1686, 
and  proceeded  to  make  preparations 
for  a  Christinas  festival  such  as  he 
was  accustomed  to  in  England. 
But  he  soon  learned  that  he  had 
people  to  deal  with  who  had  minds 
of  their  own  and  would  not  grant 
him,  although  a  representative  of 
the  King,  one  of  the  Puritan  meet- 
ing-houses in  which  to  hold  his  ser- 
vice. Shrewd  men  prompted  him 
to  steer  clear  of  an  open  rupture 
thus  early,  and  Christmas  Day, 
which  came  on  Saturday,  was 
observed  at  the  Town  House.  That 
celebration,    in    the     Boston     Town 


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THE   UPS  AND   DOWNS   OF 


House,  two  hundred  and  seventeen 
years  ago,  was  doubtless  the  first 
Christmas  celebration  with  legal 
sanction,  and  in  a  formal  way,  ever 
held  in  Boston.  We  can  but  imag- 
ine the  feelings  of  Judge  Sewall 
when  Andros  went  to  the  Episcopal 
service  with  a  red-coat  on  his  right 
and  a  captain  on  his  left. 

The  anti-Christmas  sentiment 
received  a  check  by  the  coming  of 
the  Hugucfnots  from  France.  They 
were  widely  different  from  the  Puri- 
tans in  habits  and  religious  beliefs. 
They  were  buoyant  and  cheerful  in 
their  natures,  and  brought  religious 
convictions  that  were  none  the  less 
firm  because  accompanied  by  cer- 
tain pliancy  in  things  not  regarded 
as  of  vital  importance.  Their 
mother  tongue  was  French,  and 
although  Protestants  they  could 
not  assimilate  with  the  Puritan 
element,  hence  they  early  formed 
their  own  church  and  had  their  own 
clergyman.  This  was  tolerated  in 
general,  but  soon  they  began  to 
have  a  Christmas  festival.  Samuel 
Sewall  made  record  of  his  action  in 
the  matter:  "This  day  I  spoke  with 
Mr.  Newman  about  his  partaking 
with  the  French  church  on  the  25th 
of  December,  on  account  of  its  being 
Christmas,  as  they  abusively  call 
it." 

The  Huguenots,  represented  in 
Boston  by  the  Faneuil  family  and 
others  of  like  distinction,  although 
French  in  origin,  were  in  harmony 
with  the  adherents  of  the  Church 
of  England,  who  had  kindly  re- 
ceived them  in  England  when 
driven  from  their  homes  at  the 
Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes, 
and   when  meeting  in   Boston  they 


were  in  sympathy  with  the  observ- 
ance of  Christmas,  and  this  union 
of  elements  made  the  fight  against 
it  the  more  severe. 

The  learned  judge  and  the  Puri- 
tan clergymen,  however,  kept  a 
careful  watch  against  the  "arch 
enemy."  In  1697  the  Judge  records : 
"Shops  are  open  and  carts  and  sleds 
come  to  town  with  wood  and  fagots 
as  formerly."  He  takes  peculiar 
pleasure  in  the  report  of  his  son 
Joseph  (later  the  famous  pastor  of 
the  Old  South  Church). 

He  says :  "Joseph  •  tells  me  that 
though  most  of  the  Boys  went  tn 
the  Church,  yet  he  went  not."  In 
1705  he  makes  a  similar  record,  and 
in  1706  he  records  his  satisfaction 
with  the  general  work  going  on 
throughout  Christmas  day;  his  legal 
mind  could  not  give  assent  to  mob 
violence,  but  he  doubtless  turned  a 
deaf  ear  to  the  report  of  disorder 
of  that  year.  It  is  recorded  that 
"the  commoner  sort  called  names  and 
brake  windows  in  King's  Chapel!" 
because  the  worshippers  there  held  a 
Christmas  service. 

When  other  means  of  suppressing 
Christmas  failed,  the  clergymen  took 
up  the  subject  and  dealt  with  it  from 
the  pulpit,  there  exercising  their  of- 
ficial authority,  which  was  but  little  in- 
ferior to  law,  and  often  coupled  with 
it.  In  the  town  of  Hadley,  Massa- 
chusetts, the  wife  of  the  village 
squire  attended  the  anniversary 
observance  privately  held  by  two 
poor  Germans  living  upon  her  hus- 
band's estate,  being  prompted  by  a 
desire  to  extend  sympathy  to  those 
people,  so  far  away  from  their  kin 
and  country.  This  was  the  occasion 
of  a  great  uproar  in  the  community. 


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CHRISTMAS   IN   NEW   ENGLAND 


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and  the  woman  was  shunned  by  her 
neighbors,  as  if  infected  by  conta- 
gion, and  the  parson  with  the  elders, 
after  giving  the  offender  a  trial  and 
finding  her  guilty,  ordered  that  she 
be  excommunicated  from  the 
church.  This  was  at  a  time  when 
such  an  act  meant  little  less  than 
ostracism  for  life. 

Rev.  Cotton  Mather  denounced 
Christmas  festivity  on  December  25, 
1712,  in  the  following  strong  lan- 
guage: 

"  Tis  an  evident  affront  unto  the 
grace  of  God  for  men  to  make  the 
birth  of  our  holy  Saviour  an  encour- 
agement and  an  occasion  for  very 
holy  enormities.  Can  you  in  your 
consciences  think  that  our  holy  Sav- 
iour is  honored  by  mirth,  by  long 
eating,  by  hard  drinking,  by  lewd 
gaming,  by  rude  revelling,  by  a  mass 
fit  for  none  but  a  Saturn  or  a  Bac- 
chus, or  the  light  of  Mohametan 
Romadon  ?  Shall  it  be  said  that  at  the 
birth  of  our  Saviour,  for  which  we  owe 
as  high  praise  to  God  as  the  heavenly 
host  can  do,  we  take  the  time  to  please 
the  hellish  legions  and  to  do  actions 
that  have  much  more  of  hell  than  of 
heaven  in  them." 

The  Puritan  contempt  for  the  use 
of  green  at  Christmas  lasted  after 
they  had  reluctantly  admitted  a 
passing  observance  of  the  day.  It 
not  only  savored  of  the  Saturnalia, 
but  it  kept  alive  the  old  tradition 
that  according  as  the  holly  brought 
in  at  Christmas  was  smooth  or 
rough,  the  wife  or  the  husband 
would  be  the  one  in  authority  the  fol- 
lowing year,  and  surely  no  man,  even 
of  Puritan^  stock,  could  tolerate  the 
idea  of  being  other  than  "the  lord  of 
creation." 


A  slight  modification  of  the  oppo- 
sition is  detected  after  Samuel  Sew- 
all  had  been  dead  some  years.  It 
was  in  1753  when  the  Old  South 
Church  voted  to  allow  the  wor- 
shippers at  King's  Chapel,  whose 
house  had  been  burned,  to  have  their 
Christmas  celebration  in  their  meet- 
ing-house on  the  condition  that  they 
would  not  decorate  it  with  spruce  or 
other  green,  branding  the  holly  and 
ivy  as  "seditious  badges." 

Although  the  provincial  soldiers, 
during  the  Revolution,  paid  but 
little  heed  to  Christmas,  they  were 
familiar  with  the  habits  of  the  for- 
eign troops,  here  as  their  encfmies, 
and  took  the  advantage  of  Christ- 
mas, 1776.  It  was  nearly  six  months 
after  independence  had  been  de- 
clared, and  proclaimed  from  town 
to  town,  but  it  was  the  most  gloomy 
period  of  the  war  to  the  Americans. 
The  last  campaign  had  been  almost 
a  series  of  disasters,  and  retreats. 
The  enemy  had  gained  possession  of 
Rhode  Island,  Long  Island,  and 
nearly  the  whole  of  New  Jersey, 
and  to  the  Provincials  the  approach- 
ing Christmas  gave  no  promise  of 
cheer. 

But  Washington,  who  knew  the 
habit  of  the  Germans  to  have  a 
grand  carousal  at  Christmas,  would 
put  them  off  their  guard,  deter- 
mined to  take  advantage  of  the  feast, 
cross  the  Delaware,  make  an  at- 
tack upon  Trenton,  and  secure  a  vic- 
tory. This  he  did,  and  from  that 
Christmas  day  forward  the  American 
force  became  an  army  more  than  in 
name,  and  the  fortunes  of  the  United 
States  never  again  sank  to  so  low  an 
ebb. 

The     Christmas    gift     which     the 

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THE    REFUGE 


commander-in-chief  was  enabled  to 
present  to  the  continental  authori- 
ties did  much  toward  the  final  tri- 
umph of  the  cause  of  the  American 
colonies. 

It  required  a  long  time  fully  to 
overcome  the  inherited  prejudices. 
In  fact,  Christmas  was  not  regarded 
as  a  New  England  holiday  until  the 
nineteenth  century  was  well  on  its 
way,  though  in  certain  localities, 
such  as  Narragansett  —  an  opulent 
community  settled  by  Episcopalians — 
two  weeks  of  Christmas  visiting  and 
feasting  were  kept  up  by  the  plant- 
ers and  their  slaves  alike. 

It  was  not  until  1838  that  the 
state  of  Massachusetts  made  any 
holiday  legal,  and  this  action  was 
in  relation  to  days  of  grace  in  com- 
mercial paper.     Then  Thanksgiving, 


Fast  Day  and  July  Fourth  were  recog- 
nized, and  a  provision  made  for  the 
payment  of  legal  obligations  com- 
ing due  on  those  days  and  on 
Sunday. 

In  1856  the  law  was  so  amended  as 
to  include  Christmas,  and  make  it 
a  legal  holiday.  This  was  done  by 
an  act  of  the  General  Court  which 
received  the  signature  of  Nathaniel 
P.  Banks,  Governor.  Up  to  this 
time  the  schools  had  been  in  ses- 
sion on  Christmas,  although  the 
Christmas  sentiment  was  fast  tak- 
ing possession  of  the  public  mind, 
but  not  yet  had  old  Christmas,  the 
cheerful  personification  in  English 
tradition  of  charity  and  universal 
good  feeling,  of  blameless  gayety 
and  religious  joy,  fully  asserted  it- 
self in  New  England. 


The  Refuge 

By  Mary  White  Morton 

ERE  rny  blue  lips  the  icy  waters  gag, 
A  final  frenzied  stroke  I  push,  to  touch 
Yon  low,  dim  streak.     Will  it  be  rock  I  clutch, 
To  whose  kind  clefts  my  spent  self  I  may  drag. 
There  to  find  foothold,  shelt^,  life  and  joy? 
Or  drifting,  shifting  log  wherewith  to  buoy 
My  numb  corpse  yet  a  space?    Or  shall  I  grope 
For  slippery,  clammy  weed  with  which  to  be 
Sucked  to  the  salt  dregs  of  the  yieflding  sea? — 
What  wilt  thou  prove,  O  love,  my  heart's  one  hope? 


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The  Story  of  Dan 

By  Nina  Welles  Tibbot 


't    I   A^ 


lALKIN^    of     Osborne's 

folks,  I  wonder  if  you 

people    remember    the 

time  he  lost  that  pair 

of  heavy  grays  of  his  ?"  Mr.  Watson 

looked  inquiringly  at  his  friends. 

"They  was  stole,  wasn't  they?'* 
asked  Mr.  Famham. 

"Yes,  they  was  stole  and  a  mad- 
der man  you  never  see." 

"I  lost  a  pacing  mare  at  the  same 
time,"  observed  Mr.  Ollcott,  rising 
to  the  occasion. 

"And  I  lost  a  bay  horse  that  won 
first  prize  at  the  Spillman  County 
races,"  said  Oliver  Barnes. 

"Yes,  we  was  all  stole  from  about 
that  time,"  continued  Mr.  Watson, 
"but  that  ain't  what  I'm  gettin'  at. 
I  was  tryin'  to  tell  about  the  man 
that  done  the  stealin'." 

Mr.  Barnes  came  a  step  nearer, 
dragging  his  chair  behind  him.  Mr. 
Farnham  rose  and  went  to  the  win- 
dow and  looked  out.  Even  the  land- 
lord changed  his  position  and  seemed 
restless  to  hear  about  "a  real,  sure- 
enough"  horse  thief. 

"What  do  you  know  about  him?" 
asked  Si  Whitcomb. 

"I  know  all  there  is  to  know,"  ob- 
served Mr.  Watson  in  an  heroic 
tone  of  voice,  "and  since  he's  a 
deader,  I  might  be  induced  to  tell  it 
to  you  folks." 

There  was  a  moment's  silence 
broken   by   Mr.   Barnes.      "I    ain't 


much  took  with  horse  thieves,  even 
if  they  be  dead."    He  looked  sullen. 

"Well,  you  was  mightily  took 
with  this  one,  and  when  he  was  a 
goner  and  they  asked  you  to  be 
a  pallbearer,  your  head  got  so 
swelled  up  you  bought  a  stove-pipe 
hat  for  the  occasion."  Mr.  Watson 
leaned  back  and  looked  at  his 
friends  through  half-closed  eyes. 

"I  ain't  much  for  riddles,  so  if 
it's  just  the  same  to  you,  Raymer, 
speak  out,"  said  Mr.  Farnham. 

**  I'm  a-goin  to  speak  out,  for  I'm 
talkin'  about  our  recently  deceased 
governor,  the  Honorable  Mr.  Dun- 
woody."  There  was  a  peculiar 
sound  of  half-smothered  words, 
then  they  were  silent  while  Mr. 
Watson  took  a  conspicuous  seat 
and  began  his  story : 

"When  I  first  knew  Dunwoody, 
he  wasn't  an  Honorable  nor  even  a 
Mister,  but  plain  Dan.  He  come 
here  from  some  place,  nobody  knew 
where,  and  settled  down  on  a  claim 
and  lived  in  a  dugout,  about  like 
the  rest  of  us,  only  he  lived  alone 
'cept  for  a  little  yellow-headed 
baby. 

"He  was  a  frail,  slim  looking- 
chap,  and  many's  the  time  I've 
pitied  him  a  followin'  the  plough, 
for  he  looked  like  he'd  break  in  two 
if  the  horse  jerked  very  hard  on  the 
lines.  The  baby  was  always  behind 
him,  a  tumblin'  along  in  the  furrow. 


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THE  STORY  OF   DAN 


and  when  eatin'  time  come  he'd 
pick  up  the  baby  and  the  three  of 
'em — the  horse  and  the  baby  and 
the  man — ^would  go  to  the  dugout 
for  refreshments. 

"When  winter  come  on,  the  baby 
sat  in  the  window  and  Dan  done 
the  housework  and  milked  the  cows 
and  was  man  and  woman  both.  I 
used  to  feel  sorry  for  him,  not  to 
have  any  women  folks  around  to 
pester  him,  and  so  I  used  to  go 
over  and  visit  him  when  I  hadn't 
nothin'  better  to  do. 

"Some  folks  said  there  was  a  his- 
tory connected  with  Dan  and  that 
baby,  but  if  there  was,  Dan  wasn't 
out  for  tellin'  it.  Why,  you  could 
jest  quiz  him  and  he'd  never  let  on 
a  thing. 

"I  used  to  bring  him  his  mail 
sometimes, — 'twas  a  paper  usually, 
— ^but  once  'twas  a  womanish  look- 
in'  letter  with  sealin'  wax  on  it.  I 
thought  then,  seein'  as  I  was  so 
obligin',  he'd  tell  me  something,  but 
he  didn't.  'Twas  a  little  later  that  the 
horse  stealin'  begun. 

"The  first  thing  that  went  was 
Osborne's  gray  team,  and  as  I  was 
sheriff,  I  had  to  make  a  hunt  for 
them.  The  general  opinion  was 
they  had  gone  over  into  Sargent 
County,  but  I  rode  that  county 
over  from  end  to  end,  and  couldn't 
find  hide  nor  hair  of  'em.  When  I 
get  home  I  was  feelin'  pretty  blue 
and  I  just  thought  I'd  stop  and  talk 
things  over  with  Dan.  He  vas  a 
sympathizin'  fellow  and  could  chirk 
a  fellow  up  wonderfully.  But,  lo 
and  behold,  Dan  wasn't  there.  The 
baby  was  a-sittin'  in  the  window 
just  as  usual,  but  so  far  as  I  could 


see,  she  was  the  only  livin'  thing 
in  the  house. 

"That  same  week  two  more 
horses  went,  and  I  was  about  crazy 
thinkin'  out  ways  of  findin'  out  who 
took  'em.  The  next  time  I  rode 
east,  instead  o'  west,  and  when  I 
had  got  about  twenty  miles  from 
home,  who  should  I  meet,  face  to 
face,  a  ndin'  along,  but  Dan  himself, 
on  one  of  Osborne's  gray  horses? 
He  caught  sight  of  me  as  quick  as  a 
flash  and  he  turned  that  horse 
around  and  struck  out  and  me  after 
him.  I  followed  him,  but  law,  I 
couldn't  catch  him.  I  might  as  well 
have  tried  to  catch  a  deer. 

"When  I  come  back  home  I 
stopped  again  at  Dan's  house  and 
an  old  nigger  woman  was  there 
takin'  care  of  the  baby.  I  meant  to 
go  on  and  tell  the  posse  of  men 
that  had  gathered  there  to  hunt  the 
thief  all  about  how  I  had  found 
Dan,  but  somehow  I  couldn't. 
Every  time  I'd  go  to  speak  about 
it  my  throat  would  fill  up  and  I 
just  let  it  go,  meanin'  if  somebody 
else  found  him  to  let  them  have  the 
credit  of  the  catch. 

"The  next  two  or  three  weeks 
every  man  in  the  neighborhood  was 
out  huntin'.  They  just  scoured  that 
country  for  miles  in  every  direc- 
tion. Every  night  I  was  fearful  lest 
somebody  would  come  in  with  Dan 
tied  hand  and  foot,  but  they  didn't. 

"We  concluded  to  lay  off  Christ- 
mas, and  we  all  rode  home  together, 
each  goin'  where  there  was  some 
one  waitin'  and  wantin'  to  see  'em. 
I  had  a  turkey  that  I  bought  of  an 
old  man,  and  a  pound  o'  mixed 
candy,  and  a  peck  of  apples, — that 


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got  froze  on  the  way, — and  this  was 
my  Christmas  for  the  family.  And 
it  was  about  as  fine  a  tastin*  Christ- 
mas as  I  ever  had.  Wife  cooked 
that  turkey  to  a  turn,  and  baked 
some  apple  pies,  and  altogether  it 
was  a  pretty  good  lay-out. 

"When  dinner  was  over  and  we 
was  a  sittin'  around  the  stove,  I 
couldn't  get  Dan  out  o'  my  mind. 
If  he  was  in  the  land  o'  the  livin' 
and  could  have  the  use  of  his  legs, 
he'd  be  home  with  that  baby  on 
Christmas  eve.  The  more  I  thought 
the  more  certain  I  was  that  Dan 
would  be  home  that  night,  and  if  I 
wanted  to  see  him  I  could  do  so 
with  very  little  trouble. 

"After  a  little,  I  made  some  ex- 
cuse to  wife  and  started  out.  When 
I  got  in  sight  of  the  house,  my  sus- 
picions was  aroused  higher'n  ever. 
The  house  was  dark.  Never  before 
had  I  seen  Dan's  window  covered 
up.  I  listened  outside  for  a  spell, 
till  I  heard  the  baby  laugh,  and  then 
I  thought  of  a  plan  that  would  let 
me  see  inside.  Td  bore  a  hole 
through  the  door.  With  this  in 
mind,  I  went  back  home  and  got  an 
auger  an'  bored  a  hole  through 
Dan's  door  and  looked  in." 

Mr.  Watson  sat  silent  for  some 
time  while  his  audience  became 
restless. 

"Well,"  continued  Mr.  Watson, 
wiping  the  comers  of  his  faded  gray 
eyes,  "what  I  see  peekin'  through 
that  crack  would  just  turn  a  heart 
o'  stone.  Dan  had  made  that  baby 
a  Christmas  tree.  It  was  a  little 
thing  and  it  stood  on  the  table.  It 
had  three  tallow  candles  on  it,  about 
an  inch  and  a  half  long,  that  dripped 


grease  and  lighted  the  tree  at  one 
and  the  same  time.  There  were 
animal  cookies  tied  on  with  strings, 
and  an  orange  that  looked  like  Dan 
had  carried  it  in  his  pocket  for  a 
week.  There  were  two  apples  and 
a  ginger-snap  man,  and  on  the  top 
of  the  tree,  overlooking  all  this 
splendor,  sat  a  rag  baby  Dan  had 
made  himself.  It  had  a  round,  flat 
head  made  out  of  a  piece  of  Dan's 
shirt,  and  charcoal  eyes  and  mouth. 
It  had  arms  that  stuck  out  like  a 
pair  of  sore  thumbs,  and  legs  that 
crooked  so  many  ways  you  couldn't 
count  the  turns.  Over  it  all  was  a 
dress  that  Dan  had  made  out  of  a 
piece  of  white  cloth.  When  he  took 
that  doll  off  the  tree  he  looked  the 
proudest  man  I  ever  saw,  and  when 
the  baby  got  it  she  just  danced  and 
screamed.  I  sat  back  in  the  snow. 
If  he  was  an  ordinary  horse  thief 
why  didn't  he  buy  the  child  a  doll? 
He  ought  not  to  be  lackin'  money 
with  all  the  horses  he'd  stole.  If 
he  was  an  ordinary  horse  thief 
would  he  make  the  child  a  doll?  I 
was  a  man  myself  and  I  knew  some- 
thing about  the  labor  it  meant  for  a 
man  to  make  a  rag  doll,  and  he  had 
my  sympathy.  The  more  I  thought, 
the  more  determined  I  was  to  go 
into  that  house  and  have  a  talk  with 
Dan.  Of  course,  I'd  have  to  arrest 
him,  but  then  I'd  do  it  easy  and  have 
an  understandin'  with  him,  anyway. 
"In  another  ten  minutes  I  had 
placed  my  shoulder  against  the  door 
and  it  had  dropped  in,  and  I  stood 
there  before  Dan  and  the  baby 
about  as  foolish  a  lookin'  chap  as 
you  ever  see.  He  looked  at  me 
kindy  queer  and  then  he  says,  'Why 


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THE  STORY  OF   DAN 


didn't  you  rap,  Ray?'  I  told  him  1 
didn't  usually  rap  when  I  called  on 
horse  thieves,  and  he  winced  and 
gave  me  a  chair.  We  hadn't  no 
sooner  got  set  down  than  he  com- 
menced to  talk.  He  said  he  was 
awful  glad  to  see  me,  that  he  was 
wonderin'  how  he  could  send  me 
word,  for  he  had  a  little  straight- 
enin'  up  to  do.  I  said  I  thought 
likely  he  had  and  he  went  on. 

"'Sheriff,'  said  he  a  holdin'  the 
baby  closer,  'I  don't  know  as  you've 
ever  been  tried  and  found  wantin'.' 
I  didn't  say  nothin'  and  he  went  on. 
'I  have  been  tried  and  I  have  been 
found  wantin'  so  much,  I  wonder 
sometimes  if  it's  worth  while  to 
take  what's  left  and  go  on  with  it.* 
I  see  he  was  troubled  and  I  just 
kept  still  and  let  him  go  on. 

"  'Sometimes  I  think  a  man  is  like 
a  mud  wall,  he's  proof  against  bliz- 
zards, and  thunderstorms,  and  rain 
and  hail,  but  let  a  measly  little 
gopher  come  along  and  hell  find  a 
weak  place  and  get  a  hole  through 
in  half  an  hour.  It  was  a  woman 
that  found  my  weak  place,  sheriff, 
but  I  reckon  she's  clawed  all  the 
loose  dirt  away  this  time. 

"  'I  thought  I'd  got  all  over  it,  but 
law,  I  hadn't.  As  soon  as  she  even 
wrote  to  me,  I  was  just  as  bad  off 
as  ever.  It  was  the  letter  you 
brought  with  the  pink  sealin'  wax, 
and  she  told  me  she'd  come  back  and 
live  with  me,  if  I'd  get  money 
enough  to  live  in  Sacramento.  Now 
don't  make  no  comments,  sheriff,  I 
know  you  wouldn't  of  done  it,  and 
I  know  most  men  wouldn't,  but  I 
did.  I  stole  them  horses  so's  to  go 
to  Sacramento. 


"  'I  knew  all  the  time  that  some 
other  fellow  had  left  her  or  she'd 
never  come  back  to  me,  but  that 
didn't  make  no  diflference,  she'd 
come  and  that  was  enough  to  make 
me  happy.  I  only  did  one  sensible 
thing  in  the  whole  transaction — I 
hid  the  horses  where  I  thought  I 
could  get  at  'em  as  often  as  I'd 
need  to  get  money  for  expenses,  and 
then  I  went,  and  I  found  her,  but 
I  got  there  too  late — she  was 
dead.' 

"Dan  sat  still  an  awful  long  time 
after  he  said  this,  and  I  most 
thought  he  wasn't  going  to  say  any 
more,  but  after  a  little  he  went  on. 

"'When  I  see  her  lyin'  there  so 
still  and  straight  I  felt  awful  queer. 
I  felt  like  something  was  dead  in 
myself,  something  had  put  fire  in 
my  brains,  when  I  had  better  have 
been  calm  and  sensible.  There  was 
one  part  of  me  that  was  as  dead  as 
she  was,  and  that  was  the  worst 
part;  the  rest  of  me  seemed  all 
right. 

"'I  s'pose  I  ought  to  have  asked 
somebody  what  she  died  of,  but  I 
didn't.  I  thought  it  might  be  just 
as  well  if  I  didn't  know,  I  did  get 
up  grit  enough  to  turn  a  couple  of 
bloated  men  out  of  the  house,  and 
shut  the  door  on  three  painted, 
manufactured-blonde  women,  pnd 
then  a  nigger  woman  and  I  started 
in  to  run  things.  We  had  a  minis- 
ter, and  a  hearse,  and  a  funeral,  and 
when  it  was  over,  I  put  up  a  little 
white  slab  to  mark  the  place  and 
come  away. 

"  ^Well,  Raymer,'  said  Dan,  look- 
in'  me  full  in  the  face,  *I  don't  sup- 
pose most  men  pass   through   any 

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such  time  as  that,  but  it  seemed  to 
me,  when  that  woman  was  put  in 
the  ground  and  I  had  cried  out  all 
the  tears  I  had,  that  I  was  a 
changed  man.  The  clay  was  gone. 
Why,  I  used  to  be  as  full  of  clay 
as  the  Missouri  River,  but  when  I 
made  that  grave,  it  just  commenced 
settlin',  and  by  the  time  I  had  fin- 
ished everything  up  and  was  ready 
to  go  back,  I  couldn't  find  very 
much  clay  in  me :  it  was  all  in  that 
grave. 

"  'I  tried  to  find  something  to 
bring  back  and  keep  for  the  baby, 
but  I  couldn't,  that  is  nothin'  but 
this.'  He  held  up  a  weddin'  ring 
and  I  was  awful  glad  to  see  it.  I 
knew  then  he  was  talkin'  about  his 
wife  and  not  about  some  other 
man's  wife,  or  a  girl  he  might  o' 
found  somewheres. 

"  'I  guess  Fve  said  enough,'  Dan 
said,  lookin'  up  awful  wistful  like 
into  my  face.  *If  there's  anything 
lackin'  in  my  story,  you  can  fill  it 
out  yourself,  'ceptin'  this,  there 
ain't  any  more  loose  dirt  in  my  mud 
fence.  From  this  time  on,  I'm  built 
of  solid  stuflF  and  I  mean  everybody 
— includin'  the  baby  there — shall 
find  it  out.* 

"'But  the  horses?'  I  ventured  to 
ask. 

"  'Your  horses  are  all  safe,'  he  re- 
plied as  though  they  didn't  amount 
to  much  and  he  had  about  forgot  to 
mention  them.  'I'll  go  with  you  in 
the  mornin'  and  turn  them  over  into 
your  hands.  That  is,  they're  all 
safe  but  your  roan  colt.  I  sold  him 
and  bought  her  coflSn  with  the 
money.  If  you  felt  like  puttin'  a 
price  on  it  and  g^vin'  me  time  to 


pay  for  it,  you'll  be  doin'  a  greater 
kindness  than  you'll  ever  know.' 

"Well,  we  fixed  things  up  and  1 
went  with  Dan  and  got  the  stolen 
horses  and  we  drove  'em  back  to- 
gether. But  what  was  botherin'  me 
was  how  I  was  goin'  to  fix  up  with 
the  neighbors.  Horses  don't  come 
and  go  like  the  old  woman's  soap. 
At  last,  I  contrived  a  plan  to  set 
folks  a  praisin'  Dan  instead  of 
blamin'  him.  I  told  'em  that  Dan 
had  gone  out  on  his  own  hook  and 
found  all  the  horses  and  I  had  only 
helped  him  bring  'em  back.  That 
made  him  so  popular  they  raised  a 
purse  for  him.  But  at  the  first 
town  meetin'  they  held  afterwards, 
Dan  gave  it  back  to  'em  and  told  'em 
to  put  it  toward  buildin'  a  school- 
house. 

"Well,  come  to  find  out,  that  lank, 
lean  Dan  was  a  college  graduate,  a 
lawyer,  and  I  don't  know  what  else, 
and  he  had  more  books  than  some 
folks  ever  saw.  After  he  got  settled 
down  to  business,  things  com- 
menced comin'  his  way,  and  I  de- 
clare, if  he  wasn't  the  luckiest  dog 
I  ever  saw.  Run  for  county  attor- 
ney first,  and  got  it  easy;  then  he 
tried  for  the  assembly  and  got  that. 
I  guess  his  success  made  him  bold, 
for  he  run  for  Congress  and  got 
that,  and  ended  by  being  governor. 
From  the  time  he  started  to  climb- 
in'  till  the  day  he  stopped  breathin', 
he  had  everything  his  own  way.  I 
reckon  if  he'd  lived  a  little  longer, 
he'd  been  President  of  the  United 
States. 

"Strange  to  say,  he  always  had  a 
soft  place  in  his  heart  for  the 
ones    he    stole    them    horses    from. 


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FROM  THE  HEART  OF  A  MAID 


It  just  seemed  he  couldn't  do 
enough  for  'em.  Got  easy  places 
for  'em  all,  didn't  he,  Fam- 
ham?" 

Mr.  Farnham  pulled  out  an 
enormous  linen  handkerchief  and 
blew  his  nose  as  a  prelude  to 
wiping  his  eyes.  "I  owed  a  good 
deal  to  the  governor,"  he  answered 
rather  soothingly. 


"I  was  just  wonderin'/'  continued 
Mr.  Watson,  "if  a  whole  neighbor- 
hood ever  owed  so  much  to  a  horse 
thief  before.  Since  I  saw  the  turn 
Dan  made,  I've  just  been  a  leetle 
more  careful  of  human  beings  and 
the  way  I  use  'em  or  judge  'em.  I 
can't  help  thinkin'  maybe  they'd  be 
all  right  if  they  could  get  rid  of  the 
clay." 


From  the  Heart  of  a  Maid 


By  Edith  Richmond  Blanchard 


DEAR  little  book  with  crum- 
pled pages  and  tarnished 
gilt  lettering: — I  found  you 
this  morning  in  Aunt  Mar- 
tha's attic,  tucked  away  in  a  queer  old 
chest  full  of  dusty  yellow  papers  and 
almanacs  half  a  century  old.  "Lucre- 
tia,  her  Commonplace  Book,"  is  writ- 
ten on  your  fly-leaf,  and  the  same 
quaint  vertical  handwriting  fills  half 
your  pages,  so  I  know  that  long,  long 
ago,  when  great-aunt  Lucretia  was 
the  dainty  little  dark-eyed  maid  whose 
miniature  hangs  over  Aunt  Martha's 
mantel,  she  used  to  sit  with  you 
spread  open  on  her  knee,  as  I  am  doing 
now,  and  tell  you  her  secrets,  as  I 
am  going  to  tell  you  mine. 

I  am  visiting  Aunt  Martha  for  the 
first  time  since  I  was  a  little  girl,  and 
though  she  and  her  old  maid-servant, 
Hannah,  and  the  little  white  house 
in  which  they  live,  furnish  a  never- 
ceasing  fund  of  enjo)Tnent,  sometimes 
at  night  I  need  to  find  a  vent  for  all 
the   frivolous   emotions   that    I   have 


been  accumulating  during  the  day. 
Perhaps  great-aunt  Lucretia  felt  the 
same  need  when  she  chose  you  for  her 
confidante,  shabby  little  diary  with 
time-stained  leaves.  I  can  just 
remember  her  as  an  old,  old  lady 
with  bobbing  white  curls,  but  that  was 
quite  another  person  from  the  one 
who  wrote  this  record  of  a  June  Sun- 
day just  seventy-four  summers  ago 
to-day. 

'*  June  3d.  Attended  divine  worship  this 
morning  and  wore  my  new  blue  sprigged 
muslin.  Dr.  Richmond  of  Weymonth 
preached  from  Galatians  iv:28.  Thomas 
Weston  walked  home  from  church  with  me 
When  I  asked  him  how  he  enjoyed  the  ser- 
mon, he  declared  that  if  I  expected  him  to 
be  attentive  to  the  minister  I  must  not  sit 
in  the  choir  loft  where  the  sunlight  would 
fall  on  my  hair.  Which  shows  that  Thomas 
is  not  only  most  irreverent,  but  an  arrant 
flatterer  as  well." 

There  is  a  portrait  of  this  same 
Thomas  Weston  in  Aunt  Martha's 
parlor,  but  it  represents  him  as  a  grave 
gray-haired  man,  and  I  prefer  the 
picture  of  a  gallant  young  lover  that 
I   see   through   great-aunt  Lucretia's 


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eyes.  If  only  she  had  finished  the 
little  story  she  leaves  half  told.  If 
only  Aunt  Bathsheba  had  not  invited 
her  just  then  to  spend  a  month  with 
her  at  "her  home  in  the  city,"  for  the 
writing  ends  with  the  announcement 
of  the  intended  visit,  and  in  the 
excitement  of  such  a  trip  the  little 
diary  was  doubtless  forgotten. 

That  Thomas  did  not  share  the 
same  fate,  I  am  sure,  for  Aunt  Mar- 
tha says  it  was  to  this  house  that  he 
brought  great-aunt  Lucretia  in  the 
twilight  of  their  wedding  day,  and  it 
was  he  who  planted  the  two  great 
rosebushes  that  are  just  b^inning 
to  blossom  and  to  fill  the  door  yard 
with  musky  fragrance. 

Speaking  of  roses,  they  say  there 
is  a  wonderful  garden  of  them  just 
over  the  high  stone  wall  that  separates 
Aimt  Martha's  land  from  that  of  her 
neighbor,  Mr.  Thornton.  He  is  not 
really  a  neighbor  at  all,  for  he  spends 
most  of  the  year  in  the  city,  only  in 
June  he  comes  down  and  opens  the 
house  while  the  roses  are  in  bloom. 
I  remember  him  very  well  as  an  old 
gray-haired  man  who  used  to  walk 
slowly  up  and  down  the  street  with 
a  young  man  he  called  his  secretary. 
I  remember,  too,  the  stories  Hannah 
used  to  tell  me  of  his  rose-garden  and 
how  every  possible  variety  of  the 
lovely  flower  was  cultivated  there.  To 
be  sure  it  was  from  hearsay  that  she 
spoke,  for  though  he  sent  the  secre- 
tary about  to  the  neighbors  with  arm- 
fuls  of  his  treasures,  he  never  invited 
any  one  into  his  garden,  and  no  one 
in  this  proper  little  town  would  ever 
be  so  bold  as  to  intrude  upon  another's 
privacy. 

I  am  afraid  that  I  was  not  so 
decorously  minded,  for  I  used  to  look 


at  the  dividing  wall  with  longing,  and 
only  its  height  prevented  my  discov- 
ering the  beauties  behind  it.  Even 
now  the  old  desire  has  not  left  me, 
for  this  morning,  as  I  was  picking 
currants  by  the  wall,  the  wind  came  to 
me  from  over  the  provoking  bound- 
ary, loaded  with  tantalizing  fra- 
grance. I  am  taller  now,  and  perhaps 
some  day, — ^but  that  can  never  be,  for 
Aunt  Martha,  should  she  see  me, 
would  be  shocked  beyond  expression. 

Did  I  not  know  that  great-aunt 
Lucretia  was  but  nineteen  when  she 
wrote  in  you,  and  could  I  not  read 
many  a  story  of  a  maid's  foolish  ways 
between  the  stiff  little  phrases  which  • 
fill  your  pages,  I  should  never  dare, 
O  little  diary,  to  tell  you  what  I  have 
done  to-day. 

Hannah  had  left  us  early  in  the 
morning  to  visit  an  ailing  relative,  and 
Aunt  Martha  and  I  had  scarcely 
cleared  away  the  breakfast  dishes, 
when  Cousin  Sarah  Morris's  boy, 
John,  came  knocking  at  the  door. 
There  was  an  old  friend  of  Aunt 
Martha's  visiting  them,  he  said,  and 
his  mother  had  sent  him  over  with  the 
carriage  to  bring  Aunt  Martha  back 
to  spend  the  day.  Of  course  she 
declared  she  would  never  do  so  rude 
a  thing  as  to  leave  me  alone,  and 
of  course  I  insisted  that  that  was  just 
what  she  must  do,  until  at  last,  in  the 
midst  of  her  protestations,  she  found 
herself  driving  off  with  the  Imuch 
amused  John,  while  I  stood  waving 
triumphant  farewells  from  the  gate. 

It  was  such  a  perfect  morning,  with 
a  soft  west  wind  to  cool  the  golden 
streams  of  sunlight  that  flooded  all  the 
air  and  drew  changing  patterns  on  the 
grass.    I  longed  to  join  the  dancing 


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FROM   THE   HEART   OF  A   MAID 


shadows  of  the  leaves  making  merry 
there  under  the  trees  to  the  piping 
of  the  hirds'  music,  but  I  had  prom- 
ised Aunt  Martha  to  be  a  good  house- 
wife in  her  absence,  so  I  went  indoors 
to  the  dusting  and  sang  to  ease  the 
ache  of  joy  in  my  heart. 

I  was  still  humming  the  haunting 
melody  of  *Xord  Loveir*  when  I 
came  out  with  my  sewing  to  the  round 
seat  under  the  apple  tree.  I  looked 
as  prim  and  demure  as  one  of  the 
picture  ladies  in  Aunt  Martha's  par- 
lor, in  my  lavender  muslin  with  my 
little  white  roll  of  work,  but  the 
needle  went  in  and  out  very  slowly 
and  at  last  stopped  altogether.  My 
eyes  strayed  away  from  the  long  seam 
to  drink  in  the  intoxicating  loveliness 
all  about  me,  wandering  from  the  low 
swinging  boughs  overhead,  to  the  flut- 
tering sweet-pea  vines  in  the  garden, 
and  on  again  to  the  grape-vine  trellis, 
standing  like  a  dark  mat  of  color 
against  the  shadow-freckled  wall 
behind  it.  If  only  I  were  a  little  green 
tendril  at  the  trellis  top,  I  thought, 
and  could  lean  with  every  breeze  to 
look  over  into  the  mysterious  garden 
beyond.  It  was  just  then  that  I 
caught  sight  of  the  ladder  old  Eben 
uses  when  he  works  about  the  place. 
He  had  evidently  forgotten  to  take  it 
down,  and  it  leaned  most  insinuat- 
ingly  just  at  the  place  where  the 
absence  of  two  or  three  stones  makes 
the  wall  a  bit  lower. 

It  was  very  wrong  of  me  to  yield 
even  to  so  strong  a  temptation,  and  I 
did  hesitate  for  a  moment,  but  almost 
before  I  knew  it  my  feet  were  on  the 
topmost  rung,  and  I  was  leaning  on 
my  elbows  forgetting  everything  else 
in  the  sights  I  saw. 

Oh,  the  roses,  the  roses  1     Pink  and 


yellow  and  red  and  white!  Great 
full-blown  blossoms  with  velvet 
leaves  curling  about  their  golden 
hearts;  wee  little  delicate  tea-roses, 
nodding  and  shaking  out  their  soft 
yellow  skirts  with  every  breath;  old- 
fashioned  roses  crowding  together  in 
pale  pink  masses;  and  here  and  there 
a  lonely  flower  for  whose  perfection  a 
single  little  bush  was  spending  all  its 
efforts. 

There  was  one  of  these  solitary 
beauties  just  beneath  me,  its  creamy 
satin  petals  spreading  from  the  close 
folds  of  a  bud  and  still  holding  in 
their  soft  embrace  a  drop  of  dew 
which  the  morning  sun  had  over- 
looked. It  was  so  lovely  that  I  forgot 
that  I  was  in  no  position  to  call  atten- 
tion to  my  presence. 

Just  a  few  steps  away  a  man  was 
standing  winding  the  wayward 
streamers  of  a  crimson  rambler  about 
the  trellis  of  a  little  white  arbor.  His 
back  was  turned  to  me,  so  I  called 
softly,  ''Oh,  please  might  I  have  this 
one?" 

He  turned,  and  then  I  saw  that  I 
had  made  a  mistake.  "Pardon  me, 
I  thought — I  thought  you  were  the — " 
I  stopped,  partly  because  I  was  too 
embarrassed  to  finish  my  foolish 
speech,  partly  because  he  was  gazing 
at  me  so  intently,  as  if  I  were 
some  strange  thing  suddenly  dropped 
from  heaven. 

When  he  saw  my  confusion  he 
seemed  to  come  to  himself  and  to 
understand  my  difficulty. 

**No,  I  am  not  the  gardener,  though 
I  am  gardening  and  I  don't  wonder 
you  mistook  me."  He  laughed  and 
looked  deprecatorily  down  at  his  blue 
jeans  and  dusty  Shoes. 

I  prayed  devoutly  that  a  hole  in  the 


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493 


ground  would  swallow  up  both  me 
and  my  mischief-making  ladder,  but 
no  such  good  fortune  consoled  me,  and 
I  could  not  go  without  some  apology. 

"I  am  very  much  ashamed  of  my- 
self," I  said,  *'but  I  had  heard  so  much 
about  this  beautiful  place,  that  I  did 
want  to  see  it.  Of  course  it  was  very 
nide,  and  it  would  have  served  me 
quite  right  had  you  been  old  Mr. 
Thornton  himself." 

"Old  Mr.  Thornton?"  he  replied, 
frowning  as  if  perplexed. 

"Why,  yes,  it  is  Mr.  Thornton's  gar- 
den, is  it  not,  and  you — ^you  are  his 
secretary,  aren't  you?" 

He  laughed  again,  an  odd  little 
laugh.  "Well,  I  write  his  letters,"  he 
said. 

Then  because  I  had  already  turned 
to  descend  he  came  quickly  forward. 
"You  will  let  me  give  you  the  rose 
even  though  I  am  not  the  gardener." 

So  I  waited,  though  he  took  a  very 
long  time  to  cut  it  and  trimmed  away 
all  the  thorns  most  carefully. 

"If  you  are  fond  of  roses  and  would 
care  to  come,  I  know  that  Mr.  Thorn- 
ton would  be  glad  to  have  you  visit 
his  garden  whenever  you  wish,"  he 
said  as  he  tossed  the  rose  up  into  my 
hands  at  last. 

I  thanked  him  but  shook  my  head. 
"They  say  he  never  asks  people  to 
come  here,  and  Aunt  Martha  would 
not  consent  to  my  intruding.  She  is 
away  to-day,  that  is  why  I  have  let 
my  airiosity  get  the  better  of  me." 
I  did  not  wait  this  time,  but  came 
down  from  my  wretched  little  perch 
before  he  had  time  to  answer. 

When  Aunt  Martha  came  home,  she 
found  me  under  the  apple-tree,  but  the 
long  seam  was  no  nearer  being  fin- 
ished than  before. 


I  never  thought  when  last  I  wrote 
in  you,  little  diary,  that  I  should  ever 
want  to  see  again  the  garden  beyond 
the  wall,  but  I  have  been  there  very 
often  since  then,  and  the  hours  1 
spend  there  slip  away  so  fast. 

I  did  not  tell  Aunt  Martha  of  my 
rudeness,  but  the  next  morning  while 
we  were  at  breakfast,  Hannah  came 
in  with  a  great  bunch  of  roses  and  a 
note  which  she  said  had  been  left 
with  them : 

**Mr.  Thornton  begs  that  Miss  Martha 
Weston  accept  these  flowers,"  the  note  ran, 
*  *  and  it  would  gratify  him  if  she  and  her 
family  would  in  the  future  feel  at  perfect 
liberty  to  use  his  garden  as  their  own." 

I  was  blushing  most  guiltily  but 
Aunt  Martha  did  not  notice  me. 
"This  will  please  you,  Barbara,"  she 
said,  as  she  went  out  to  thank  the 
messenger. 

But  I  did  not  visit  the  rose-garden 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  I  need  no 
longer  behold  its  charms  uninvited. 
Indeed,  I  don't  think  I  ever  should 
have  gone  had  not  Aunt  Martha  come 
upon  me  as  I  was  throwing  away  the 
wilted  flowers  of  Mr.  Thornton's 
bouquet,  and  asked  me  why  I  did  not 
go  fetch  some  others.  "It  is  hardly 
courteous  to  ignore  his  kind  offer  en- 
tirely," she  said. 

So  the  next  morning  the  rose- 
garden  saw  me  once  more,  only  this 
time  I  came  to  it  through  the  little 
gate  in  the  hedge  which  borders  our 
lane.  Ihe  secretary  was  there  again, 
but  he  was  very  kind  and  did  not  refer 
to  our  former  meeting,  only  when  1 
told  him  T  was  sure  it  was  he  who  had 
influenced  Mr.  Thornton  to  let  us 
visit  his  roses,  and  thanked  him,  he 
laughed,  that  odd  little  laugh  of  his. 
He  must  be  as  fond  of  the  flowers  as 
Mr.  Thornton  himself,  for  he  is  al- 


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FROM  THE  HEART  OF  A  MAID 


ways  working  among  them  when  I  go 
there,  though  he  never  has  worn  the 
bhie  jeans  since  that  first  day. 

Sometimes  he  comes  into  the  arbor 
and  helps  me  arrange  my  bouquet  and 
tells  me  about  the  different  varieties 
I  have  gathered.  Sometimes  we  drift 
off  to  other  topics,  too,  and  while  we 
are  talking  I  forget  that  Aunt  Martha 
likes  an  early  lunch,  until  I  hear  Han- 
nah's sharp-voiced  little  bell  sounding 
from  over  the  wall. 

Our  bit  of  dooryard  with  its  green 
square  of  lawn  and  its  two  rosebushes 
seems  quite  small  and  colorless  after 
a  morning  amid  the  maze  of  beauty 
and  fragrance  next  door,  but  Aunt 
Martha  likes  her  own  little  place  the 
best.  While  I  am  filling  my  basket 
she  sits  in  the  arbor  and  talks  with 
the  secretary,  and  she  seems  to  know 
him  very  well,  for  she  always  calls  him 
'* Philip."  I  suppose  if  I  wished  I 
could  find  out  his  last  name  from  her, 
but  I  have  a  foolish  idea  that  it  is 
nicer  not  to  know  more  of  him  than 
just  that  he  is  always  gentle  and  cour- 
teous when  I  meet  him  among  the 
flowers  we  both  love. 

O,  little  diary,  I  had  almost  for- 
gotten to  tell  you  why  the  old  gentle- 
man cares  so  much  for  his  garden. 
I  had  a  fancy  of  my  own  about  it,  so 
one  day  I  asked  the  secretary,  "Is  it 
because  of  some  beautiful  woman  he 
loved  that  Mr.  Thornton  is  so  fond  of 
his  roses  ?" 

Perhaps  I  was  rude  to  question  him 
this  way,  for  he  did  not  answer  for  a 
moment.  When  he  spoke  at  last  his 
voice  was  so  intense  that  it  had  al- 
most a  quaver.  "Yes,  it  is  because 
of  a  beautiful  woman,"  he  said. 

There  are  no  more   roses   in  the 


garden  beyond  the  wall.  Sometimes 
I  wonder  if  the  sun  shines  as  golden 
there  as  it  used  to  when  the  flowers 
smiled  back  at  it.  I  wonder,  too,  if 
the  wind  breathes  through  the  leaves 
as  softly  now  that  there  is  no  fra- 
grance to  make  it  sweet.  I  do  not 
know,  perhaps  I  never  shall,  for  since 
a  day  such  a  weary  while  ago,  I  have 
not  been  in  the  rose-garden. 

We  were  sitting  in  the  arbor  that 
day,  he  and  I,  and  while  we  were 
talking  the  gardener  came  in  upon  us 
and  interrupted  us  abruptly:  "Shall 
I  resod  that  bit  of  lawn  to-day,  or 
wait  a  while,  Mr.  Thornton  ?"  he  said. 

It  was  not  alone  the  man's  words, 
but  his  respectful  manner,  a  sudden 
recollection  of  something  Aunt  Mar- 
tha had  once  said,  and  more  than  all, 
the  look  in  the  grave  gray  eyes  of  the 
man  beside  me,  as  they  turned  back  to 
meet  mine. 

"After  all  you  would  soon  have  had 
to  know,"  he  said,  and  then  he  told 
me.  Told  me  that  he  was  not  the 
secretary,  but  the  owner  of  the  whole 
great  estate,  which  his  grandfather, 
dying  three  years  before,  had  left  to 
him.  Though  he  had  let  me  keep  my 
mistaken  notion,  it  was  not  word  or 
deed  of  his  that  had  deceived  me;  I 
had  taken  his  position  utterly  for 
granted,  and  he  had  been  so  content 
as  a  poor  secretary  that  he  feared  lest 
an  explanation  should  cost  him  his 
happiness.  Probably  no  one  else  had 
guessed  that  I  did  not  know  the  truth. 

All  this  he  told  me,  and  much  more, 
oh,  very  much  more.  There  were  an* 
gry  words  on  my  lips  when  he  began 
to  speak,  but  when  he  was  done  I 
sat  quite  silent  without  an  answer.  I 
could  think  of  nothing  save  that  my 
heart  beat  so  noisily  against  my  side 


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FROM    TriE    HEART   OF   A    MAlD 


495 


that  I  must  go  away  lest  he  hear  its 
thud.  The  roses  in  my  lap  fell  un- 
heeded about  me  as  1  went  slowly 
down  the  ash-strewn  walk  to  the  gate. 
He  took  two  or  three  steps  after  me 
and  then  stopped.  "Have  you  no  word 
for  me,  Barbara?"  he  said. 

But  I  thought  the  beating  of  my 
heart  was  because  of  anger,  so  I  went 
away  without  turning  back.  And 
now,  now  that  it  is  too  late,  I  know 
that  it  was  not  anger  after  all. 

Dear  little  treasure  house  of  tender 
memories,  sometimes  I  have  imagined 
that  at  night,  when  all  is  still,  the 
spirit  of  that  Lucretia,  whose  you 
were,  steals  softly  through  the  dusk 
to  bend  above  your  yellow  pages  and 
to  read  the  story  I  have  written  in  her 
book.  If  she  should  come  to-night, 
little  diary,  tell  her  I  have  left  a  kiss 
here  on  the  page  for  her,  and  because 
she  had  a  lover  in  the  old  days  she  will 
understand  what  I  must  write  in 
words  if  1  would  have  you  know. 

The  time  slipped  past  so  slowly  and 
so  drearily  after  I  left  the  garden 
beyond  the  wall  that  day.  I  had  been 
happy  with  Hannah  and  Aunt  Martha 
before,  and  they  thought  that  I  was 
happy  still  because  they  did  not  know 
of  the  long,  long  nights  that  I  spent 
in  my  little  room  up-stairs.  When  at 
last  I  went  to  tell  Aunt  Martha  I  must 
go  away,  she  stared  at  me  with  a 
glance  full  of  surprise  at  first;    then 


a  queer  look  gathered  in  her  old  eyes 
and  she  patted  my  cheek.  "You 
know  best,  Barbara/'  she  said. 

She  did  not  ask  me  to  go  with  her 
to  the  Friday  meeting  that  night,  but 
took  Hannah,  leaving  me  alone,  and 
I  was  glad,  for  there  was  something 
I  had  yet  to  do. 

The  shadows  under  the  trees  grew 
longer  and  deepened  from  gray  to 
purple.  They  wrapped  me  in  their 
dusky  folds  so  that  no  one  could  see 
when  I  brought  the  gardener's  ladder 
and  set  it  against  the  wall  at  the  place 
where  it  had  once  before  leaned. 

In  the  moonlight  the  garden  beyond 
lay  like  a  thing  of  carven  ebony  and 
silver.  Ihe  soft  night  air  did  not 
disturb  its  sleeping  loveliness,  but 
came  to  touch  my  hot  cheek  with  its 
cool  breath.  I  could  scarcely  see  for 
the  mist  in  my  eyes,  but  I  stretched 
my  hands  to  the  place  of  happy  mem- 
ories. 

"Good-by,  dear  garden,"  I  called, 
softly,  "Good-by,  dear,  dear  gar- 
den." 

I  did  not  guess  that  some  one  had 
come  behind  me  unseen  in  the  shad- 
ows. Perhaps  the  grief  in  my  heart 
had  made  me  deaf  as  well  as  blind. 
I  do  not  know  how  long  he  had  been 
standing  there  at  my  feet,  but  when  I 
turned  I  saw  him  waiting  with  out- 
stretched arms. 

"Barbara,"  he  said. 


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Front  Elevation 


The  United  States  National  Museum 


By  Randolph  I.  Geare 


A  COMPREHENSIVE  and 
classified  collection  of 
specimens,  administered 
under  governmental  con- 
trol and  illustrating  the  natural  prod- 
ucts of  a  country,  as  well  as  the  an- 
cient and  modern  arts  and  industries 
of  its  people,  constitutes,  to  all  in- 
tents and  purposes,  a  National  Mu- 
seum. The  existence  of  such  an  es- 
tablishment is  a  recognized  necessity 
in  every  civilized  country,  not  only 
for  the  edification  and  recreation  of 
^ts  own  people,  but  also  as  a  means 
of  demonstrating  to  the  outside 
world  the  character  and  extent  of  its 
resources  and  the  life-history  and  ac- 
complishments of  its  inhabitants, 
past  and  present. 

It  seems  safe  to  assume  that  this 
fact  was  recognized  by  the  United 
States  Congress  as  far  back  as  1836. 
when  a  bill  was  passed,  accepting  the 
bequest  of  James  Smithson,  an  Eng- 
lishman, who  desired  to  found  at 
Washington  an  institution,  to  be 
known  as  the  "Smithsonian  Institu- 
496 


tion,*'  for  the  increase  and  diffusion 
of  knowledge  among  men.  It  is  true 
that  at  first  there  was  a  wide  diver- 
sity of  opinion  as  to  how  the  gift 
should  be  used,  but  various  influ- 
ences were  brought  to  bear  which  re- 
sulted in  the  establishment  of  the  in- 
stitution along  lines  which  are  being 
in  a  large  measure  adhered  to  at  the 
present  day.  The  Act  establishing 
the  Smithsonian  Institution  was 
sigfned  by  President  Polk  on  Au- 
gust 10,  1846,  and  two  of  its  most 
significant  features  pointed  to  the  for- 
mation of  a  library  and  a  museum. 

The  first  scientific  collection  which 
this  government  owned  is  believed  to 
have  been  Smithson's  cabinet  of  min- 
erals, which  in  1838  passed,  with  the 
money  he  bequeathed,  into  the  hands 
of  the  representative  of  the  United 
States,  Mr.  Richard  Rush.  Three 
years  afterwards  the  "National  In- 
stitute" was  organized  in  Washing- 
ton, and  among  its  objects  was  that 
of  making  scientific  collections  of 
natural    history    specimens.      These 


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THE    UNITED    STATES    NATIONAL    MUSEUM 


497 


were  housed  in  the  Patent  Office 
under  .the  designation  of  the  "Na- 
tional Cabinet  of  Curiosities."  The 
National  Institute  had  a  checkered 
career,  however,  and  its  operations 
were  abandoned  after  it  had  been  in 
existence  about  twenty  years.  Some 
years  later  its  treasures,  including 
the  unsurpassed  collections  made  by 
th€  Wilkes  Exploring  Expedition, 
sent  by  the  Navy  Department  around 
the  world  in  1838,  were  transferred  to 
the  custody  of  the  Smithsonian  Insti- 
tution. Thus  was  formed  a  fair  nu- 
cleus for  the  ^'National  Museum," 
whose  origin  has  been  aptly  ex- 
pressed by  the  late  Dr.  Goode  "From 
the  marriage  of  the  National  Cabinet 
of  Curiosities  -with  the  Smithsonian 
Institution,  the  National  Museum 
was  born." 

The  Act  establishing  the  Smithso- 
nian Institution  was  passed  in  1846, 
and  the  Board  of  Regents  was 
charged  with  the  erection  of  a  suitable 
building,  which  should  include  all 
necessary   arrangements   for  the   ac- 


commodation of  collections  of  objects 
of  natural  history,  including  a  geo- 
logical and  mineralogical  cabinet,  a 
library,  a  gallery  of  art,  etc.  The  Act 
also  provided  that 

"in  proportion  as  suitable  arrangements 
can  be  made  for  their  reception,  all  ob- 
jects of  art  and  of  foreign  and  curious 
research,  and  all  objects  of  natural  his- 
tory, plants,  and  geological  and  mineral- 
ogical specimens,  belonging,  or  hereafter 
to  belong,  to  the  United  States,  which 
may  be  made  in  the  city  of  Washington,  in 
whosesoever  custody  the  same  may  be, 
shall  be  delivered  to  such  persons  as  may 
be  authorized  by  the  Board  of  Regents 
to  receive  them,  and  shall  be  arranged  in 
such  order  and  so  classed  as  best  to 
facilitate  the  examination  and  study  of 
them,  in  the  building  so  as  aforesaid  to  be 
erected  for  the  Institution." 

Collections  soon  began  to  pour 
in  from  governmental  and  private 
sources,  and  the  difficulties  of  taking 
proper  care  of  them  increased  daily. 
With  the  appointment  of  Prof.  Spen- 
cer F.  Baird  as  assistant  secretary  in 
1850,   the   conditions   improved.     He 


Smithsonian  Institution 


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United  States  National  Museum 


was  given  charge  of  the  Museum,  and 
to  it  he  brought  his  own  extensive  zo- 
ological collections.  His  personal 
magnetism  was  great,  and  through 
his  influence  many  departments  and 
bureaus  of  the  government  aided  in 
increasing  the  collections,  especially 
the  War  and  Navy  Departments,  the 
Signal  Service  of  the  Aniiy,  the  Geo- 
logical Sur\^ey,  and  later  the  Fish 
Commission  and  the  Bureau  of  Eth- 
nolog)',  which  latter  is  one  of  the  nu- 
merous wards  of  the  parent  institu- 
tion. 

The  Centennial  Exhibition,  held  in 
Philadelphia  in  1876,  was  destined  to 
play  an  important  part  in  the  devel- 
opment of  the  National  Museum. 
The  United  States  government  au- 
thorized the  preparation  of  extensive 
exhibits,  and  at  the  close  of  the  exhi- 
bition it  was  found  necessary  to  pro- 
vide a  special  building  for  housing 
vhem  and  also  the  numerous  collec- 
tions brought  in  by  foreign  countries 
and  afterwards  given  to  the  United 
States.  The  Smithsonian  Building, 
in  which  the  National  Collections  had 
long  been  sheltered,  now  proved 
498 


wholly  inadequate,  and  Congress  was 
asked  for  an  appropriation  for  the 
construction  of  a  separate  building. 
This  was  granted  in  1879,  and  the 
building  was  completed  in  1881. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  late 
Dr.  G.  Brown  Goode,  who  had  at- 
tracted the  attention  of  Prof.  Baird  a 
few  years  previously,  and  had  assisted 
in  preparing  the  exhibits  for  the  Cen- 
tennial Exhibition,  began  to  develop 
his  remarkable  talents  for  museum 
work.  He  was  appointed  *'Assistant 
Director  of  the  Museum,  and  later  As- 
sistant Secretary  of  the  Smithsonian 
Institution  in  charge  of  the  National 
IMuseum," — a  position  now  held  by 
Mr.  Richard  Rathbun.  Dr.  Goode  de- 
vised new  forms  of  cases  for  exhibi- 
tion purpo6es,  and  for  affording  stor- 
age for  the  material  reserved  for  the 
use  of  investigators.  He  planned  the 
work  of  the  Museum,  made  an  excel- 
lent classification,  broad  enough  to 
cover  all  kinds  of  material,  and  com- 
piled an  adequate  set  of  regulations 
for  its  administration. 

The  building  cost  about  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  dollars  and  is 


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THE    UNITED    STATES    NATIONAL    MUSEUM 


499 


probably  the  cheapest  building  of  the 
kind  in  the  world.  It  is  located  on 
the  Mall  between  Seventh  and  Tenth 
Streets,  to  the  north  of  B  Street,  S. 
W.,  and  covers  a  space  of  two  and  a 
third  acres,  measuring  three  hundred 
and  twenty-five  feet  square.  In  less 
than  five  years  after  its  completion  it 
was  realized  that  more  space  was 
needed.  Galleries  have  been  added  in 
later  years,  which  have  afforded  some 
little  relief  from  the  congestion,  but 
it  must  be  evident  to  any  thoughtful 
person  that  the  exhibits  can  not  be 
satisfactorily  examined  until  the  rows 
of  cases  can  be  placed  further  apart, 
while  the  number  of  collections  avail- 
able for  exhibition  purpMDses,  but  still 
in  storage,  as  there  is  no  place  to  in- 
stall them,  is  very  large  and  con- 
stantly increasing. 


A  considerable  part  of  the 
Smithsonian  building,  estimated  at 
about  fifty-one  thousand  square 
feet,  is  used  for  museum  purposes, 
while  for  storage,  taxidermists' 
rooms,  carpenters*  workrooms,  etc., 
outside  buildings,  with  a  total 
of  about  forty-three  thousand 
square  feet  have  been  pressed  into 
temporary  service. 

The  principal  functions  of  the  Mu- 
seum have  been  described  in  the  fol- 
lowing words: 

**First,  it  is  ^  niitseum»  of  record,  in  that 
it  is  charged  with  the  care  and  preserva- 
tion of  the  material  foundations  of  a  vast 
amount  of  scientific  knowledge — the  types 
of  many  past  investigations  relating  most 
extensively  to  resources  and  aborigines 
of  the  United  States.  Under  this  head, 
however,  may  be  properly  classed  the  en- 
tire series  of  reserve  collections  in  all  de- 


Main  Exhibition  Hall  in  the  Smithsonian  Building 

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;,    National  Museum.    Hall  of  American  History 


partmcnts,  the  scientific,  industrial,  and 
artisiic  wealth   of  the  Museum. 

''Secondly,  it  is  a  museum  of  research, 
in  that  it  is  directed  by  law  to  clas- 
sify as  well  as  arrange  the  specimens 
placed  in  its  keeping,  and  it  also  aims 
to  make  its  contents  serve  in  the  high- 
est degree  as  a  stimulus  to  inquiry  and 
a  foundation  for  scientific  investigation. 

"Thirdly,  it  is  an  educational  museum 
through  its  policy  of  illustrating  by  speci- 
mens every  kind  of  natural  object  and 
every  manifestation  of  human  thought  and 
activity,  of  displaying  descriptive  labels 
adapted  to  the  popular  mind,  and  of  dis- 
tributing its  publications  and  its  named 
series  of  duplicate  specimens." 

The  scope  of  the  National  Museum 
practically  comprises  all  branches  of 
science  and  the  arts.  The  subjects 
which  up  to  the  present  time  have 
been  most  fully  treated  are  American 
ethnology  and  archaeology,  zoology, 
geology  and  botany.  A  beginning 
500 


has  also  been  made  in  the  important 
branches  of  the  industrial  arts  and 
in  a  systematic  presentation  of  the 
principal  events  in  American  history. 
The  National  Museum  now  justly 
occupies  a  warm  place  in  the  heart  of 
every  loyal  American.  It  is  the 
Treasure-house  of  the  nation,  and  it 
is  more  than  this — for  in  a  peculiar 
and  special  sense  it  belongs  to  the 
people  and,  perhaps  in  a  greater  de- 
gree than  any  other  government  es- 
tablishment, affords  them  pleasure 
and  profit,  by  stimulating  their  inter- 
est in  scientific  matters,  admitting 
them  to  a  well-planned  exposition  of 
nature's  secrets,  increasing  their  pride 
in  the  wonderful  productions  of  their 
own  land,  and  inciting  them  to  a 
deeper  love  of  country  and  a  higher 
appreciation  of  the  brave  deeds  of 
their  forefathers.    The  young  and  the 


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THE    UNITED    STATES    NATIONAL   MUSEUM 


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old  love  to  wander  through  its  halls, 
and  the  extent  to  which  this  privilege 
has  been  enjoyed  may  be  best  gauged 
by  the  fact  that  since  its  completion 
between  seven  and  eight  millions  of 
people  have  passed  through  its  doors, 
including  also  the  old  Smithsonian 
Building,  in  which,  as  already  inti- 
mated, some  of  the  exhibits  are  In- 
stalled. 

The  National  Museum  has  had  an 
enviable  past.  Men  of  world-wide 
fame,  like  Henry,  Baird,  Goode  and 
others,  have  directed  its  operations, 
paving  the  way  for  a  museum  which 
will  stand  at  the  front  of  the  world's 
list.  No  less  fortunate  is  its  present 
position  among  great  museums,  its 
affairs  being  in  the  hands  of  Secretary 
S.  P.  Langley  and  Assistant  Secre- 
tary Richard  Rathbun,  who  are  men 
of  long  experience,  wide  scientific  at- 


tainments, and  peculiar  fitness  for 
their  work.  Many  of  the  curators, 
too,  who  entered  its  service  nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago,  are  still  on 
the  staff,  and  the  Museum  is  daily 
reaping  the  benefit  of  their  experience 
in  collecting,  or  supervising  the  work 
of  collectors,  in  devising  the  best 
means  for  exhibiting  and  labelling  the 
specimens,  and  in  studying  the  new 
forms  of  animals  and  plants,  rocks, 
minerals  and  fossils,  as  well  as  the  di- 
versified collections  of  objects  from 
all  parts  of  the  globe,  which  illustrate 
man,  his  arts  and  occupations,  his 
dress  and  recreations — in  short  his 
culture  in  all  its  bearings. 

It  is  difficult  to  grasp  the  fact  that 
the  National  Museum  now  contains 
nearly  six  millions  of  specimens  of  all 
kinds.  These  are,  for  convenience  of 
administration,     divided     into     three 


National  Museum.    Catlin  Gallery  of  Indian  Portraits  and  Groups 

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National  Museum.   Osteological  Hall 


great  classes:  Anthropology,  Biology 
(including  plants)  and  Geology  (in- 
cluding fossils),  each  under  the  super- 
vision of  a  Head  Curator. 

In  the  Anthropological  Depart- 
ment there  are  nearly  a  million  ob- 
jects. The  Biological  Department 
contains  nearly  four  and  a  half  mil- 
lion specimens,  of  which  about  one- 
third  belong  to  the  numerous  sections 
of  the  Division  of  Insects.  The  Her- 
barium contains  more  than  half  a  mil- 
lion mounted  plants,  while  the  col- 
lection of  shells  is  about  twice  as 
large.  The  Geological  Department, 
including, — besides  rocks  and  ores, — 
minerals,  meteorites,  and  fossil  an- 
imals and  plants,  shows  a  smaller 
number  of  specimens,  about  six  hun- 
dred thousand,  but  it  makes  up  in 
quality  what  it  lacks  in  quantity,  for 
it  contains  the  greater  part  of  the  val- 
502 


uable  collections  gathered  by  the 
early  geological  and  other  surveys 
which  commenced  their  operations 
when  this  country  was  emerging 
from  the  condition  of  almost  wilder- 
ness. 

Tlie  scientific  staff  embraces  over 
sixty  names,  graded  as  curators,  as- 
sistant curators,  custodians,  aids,  col- 
laborators and  associates.  Only 
about  one-half  receive  any  compensa- 
tion from  the  Museum,  the  remainder, 
serving  in  an  honorary  capacity,  be- 
ing for  the  most  part  officially  at- 
tached to  other  scientific  bureaus  of 
the    government. 

A  private  collector  with  a  few  hun- 
dreds or  thousands  of  specimens,  to 
which  he  adds  a  little  occasionally,  has 
plenty  of  work  to  keep  him  busy,  if 
his  specimens  are  to  be  accurately  clas- 
sified and  labelled,  and  well  displayed. 


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Judge,  then,  of  the  amount  of  labor  in- 
volved in  the  preservation  of  the  enor- 
mous collections  in  the  National  Mu- 
seum, already  on  hand,  and,  also  in 
classifying  and  installing  the  ever-in- 
coming accessions,  which  average 
a  thousand  or  more  specimens  a 
day. 

The  collections  that  come  to  the 
National  Museaim  answer  a  four-fold 
purpose.  In  the  first  place,  a  careful 
selection  is  made  of  those  objects 
which  will  best  serve  for  exhibition  in 
the  public  halls,  the  claims  of  the  gen- 
eral public  being  fully  taken  into  ac- 
count. It  must  be  understood,  how- 
ever, that  only  a  small  fraction  of  the 
whole  is  exhibited,  both  on  account 
of  lack  of  space,  and  also  for  the  rea- 
son that  the  general  public  would  not 
be  interested  in  examining  material 
which,  while  of  no  popular  interest. 


may  be  of  infinite  value  to  the  inves- 
tigator. 

Secondly,  students  and  specialists 
visit  the  Museum,  often  coming  hun- 
dreds, and  occasionally  thousands,  of 
miles,  for  the  express  object  of  study- 
ing certain  collections,  or  specimens 
representing  a  particular  group. 
Every  possible  facility  is  afforded 
them  in  their  work,  and  the  courtesies 
extended  in  such  cases  by  the  author- 
ities of  the  Museum  sometimes  in- 
clude placing  laboratory  facilities  at 
their  disposal. 

The  third  way  by  which  the  collec- 
tions are  made  useful  is  by  sending 
them  away  to  specialists  for  study. 
Nearly  every  year  several  thousands 
of  specimens  are  thus  placed  at  the 
disposal  of  investigators.  These  op- 
erations include  a  large  amount  of  la- 
bor in  selecting,  packing  and  invoic- 


National  Museum.    Ceramic  Gallery 


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THE    UNITED    STATES    NATIONAL    MUSEUM 


One  of  the  Dinosaurs 

ing  the  material,  but  this  courtesy  is 
only  extended  in  cases  where  the  spe- 
ciaHst  cannot  leave  his  work  to  visit 
the  Museum,  or  needs  the  specimens 
for  comparison  with  other  material 
already  in  his  hands. 

Fourthly,  the  duplicate  specimens 
which  accumulate  in  the  various  de- 
partments, are  made  up,  as  time  per- 
mits, into  sets  for  distribution  among 
colleges  and  other  places  of  learning. 


and  probably  not  less  than  800,000 
specimens  of  various  kinds,  including 
minerals,  rocks  and  ores,  birds, 
fishes  and  marine  invertebrates,  have 
thus  been  disposed  of.  Their  value  to 
those  institutions  may  be  best  appre- 
ciated from  the  grateful  letters  of  ac- 
knowledgment which  follow  their  re- 
ceipt. 

The  Annual  Reports  of  the  Museum 
contain  detailed  information  concern- 
ing the  accessions  to  the  collections, 
and  the  reader  who  desires  to  fa- 
miliarize himself  with  their  specific 
character  can  readily  do  so.  With 
such  vast  masses  of  material  to 
choose  from,  it  would  indeed  be  diffi- 
cult to  say  which  are  the  most  inter- 
esting objects  on  exhibition;  that  is, 
from  the  popular  standpoint.  The 
visitor  who  is  interested  in  geology 


Argus  Pheasants  from  Lower  Siam 


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THE    UNITED    STATES    NATIONAL    MUSEUM 


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would  probably  linger  for  a  few  mo- 
ments around  the  cases  containing 
meteorites.  There  is  something  al- 
most uncanny  about  these  silent  and 
uninvited  visitors  from  unknown 
worlds,  hiding  their  origin  so  per- 
fectly that  no  one  has  been  able  to  dis- 
cover whence  they  came  or  whither 
ihcy  were  going  when  accidentally 
they  landed  on  this  earth.  Or  per- 
haps the  gems  may  present  equal  at- 
tractions, especially  to  the  ladies. 
The  collection  of  gem  stones  includes 
some  thirty  thousand  specimens,  all 


the  halls  of  the  Department  of  Biol- 
ogy, in  one  of  which  groups  of 
bison,  moose,  foxes,  etc.,  installed  in 
the  most  perfect  manner,  with  their 
natural  surroundings,  are  exhibited. 
The  ferocious  Kadiak  bear,  the  obese 
Walrus  and  the  huge,  though  some- 
what helpless-looking  Sea  Lion,  are 
favorites  with  the  school  children  who 
visit  the  Museum  by  hundreds  and 
thousands  on  Saturdays  and  other 
holidays.  Other  zoological  collections 
are  exhibited  in  the  Smithsonian 
building,  and  indeed  the  first  striking 


Model  of  Ancient  Cliff  Dwelling  in  Arizona 


of  which  are  now  on  exhibition.  The 
collection  of  rock-forming  minerals  is 
also  very  attractively  arranged.  To 
those  who  delight  in  large  objects, 
the  great  fossil  animals,  called 
Dinosaurs,  are  a  never-failing  source 
of  wonder.  Among  those  represented 
are  the  huge  Triceratops  with  three 
horns,  and  the  unwieldy  BrontosauruSy 
some  sixty  feet  in  length. 

The  visitor  who  delights  in  living 
animals,  but  does  not  have  the  oppor- 
tunity of  studying  them  in  their  native 
haunts,  will  be  naturally  attracted  to 


objects,  as  one  enters  at  the  north 
door,  consist  of  four  double  cases  of 
gaily  plumaged  birds,  whose  radiant 
beauty  is  much  enhanced  by  numer- 
ous electric  lights.  These  are  the 
Birds  of  Paradise,  the  Hornbills,  the 
Parrots  and  the  Toucans.  A  little  to 
the  west  is  a  case  of  Argus  pheasants 
from  Lower  Siam,  whose  gorgeous 
plumage  is  hardly  rivaled  by  that  of 
the  peacock.  The  largest  one  has 
been  mounted  with  its  wings  out- 
spread, showing  the  beautiful  eye- 
spots  on  its  feathers,  which  are  said  to 


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THE    UNITED   STATES    NATIONAL    MUSEUM 


attract  the  females  to  their  proud 
lords.  In  this  attitude  the  head  seems 
to  be  missing,  so  deep  down  is  it  bur- 
ied under  the  rich  expanse  of  wing. 

Repulsive,  yet  fascinating,  the  Hfe- 
like  casts  of  large  poisonous  snakes, 
such  as  the  rattlesnake,  moccasin  and 
copperhead,  exercise  an  unexplainable 
charm  upon  the  average  visitor,  who 
almost  stealthily  approaches  the  cases 
where  these  death-inflicting  serpents 
still  peer  through  the  glass  as  though 
yet  lurking  for  more  victims.  At  the 
head  of  this  category  should  be  men- 
tioned the  King  Cobra,  or  Sunker- 
chor,  of  India,  which  sometimes  at- 
tains the  enormous  length  of  sixteen 
and  a  half  feet. 

Again,  if  one  seeks  to  learn  about 
the  life-history  of  man — and  especial- 
ly about  the  earliest  known  inhabi- 
tants of  this  country,  he  will  wend  his 
way  to  the  Anthropological  halls, 
where  the  exhibits  have  been  installed 
by  a  master-hand,  and  with  a  special 
view  to  illustrating  man  and  the  re- 
sults of  his  activities.  Family  life  is 
shown  by  groups  of  lay  figures,  tribal 
life  by  models  of  villages,  and  indus- 
trial life  by  specimens. 

The  arid  regions  of  Colorado,  Utah, 
Arizona  and  New  Mexico  abound  in 
cafions  and  plateaus,  and  the  rocky 
walls  have  been  carved  by  the  ele- 
ments into  many  fanciful  shapes. 
Here  also  were  left  shelves,  shelters 
and  caverns,  and  these  were  exten- 
sively utilized  by  the  ancient  tribes 
for  dwelling  purposes,  from  which  cir- 
cumstances they  derive  their  name, 
'^Cliflf  Dwellers."  Along  the  face  of 
the  natural  recesses,  walls  of  stone 
were  built  up,  behind  which  rooms  of 
various  sizes  were  formed  by  parti- 
tions of  rude  masonry.     These  were 


reached  by  natural  pathways,  by  steps 
cut  into  the  rock,  and  by  wooden  lad- 
ders, and  they  served  for  defence  as 
well  as  for  abodes.  By  the  remains 
of  industrial  arts  found  in  the  chfT 
structures,  their  builders  are  shown 
to  have  been  the  ancestors  of  the 
Pueblo  tribes.  Models  of  a  series  of 
these  dwellings  have  been  prepared 
by  Mr.  William  H.  Holmes  for  the 
Museum  and  one  of  them  is  show^n  in 
the  accompanying  illustration. 

The  series  of  synoptic  exhibits,  il- 
lustrating the  development  of  objects 
which  man  utilizes  in  his  daily  avoca- 
tions, are  particularly  instructive  and 
interesting.  So,  too,  are  the  large  col- 
lections of  models  of  vessels,  which 
tell  the  story  of  the  evolution  of  the 
modern  steamship  from  the  primitive 
raft  of  logs. 

There  are  some  excellent  exhibits, 
consisting  of  objects  used  in  ceremo- 
nial rites,  in  games,  arts  and  indus- 
trial pursuits,  while  the  oriental  races 
and  savages  or  semi-savage  peoples 
and  their  arts  and  industries,  have 
also  received  careful  attention. 

But  after  all — after  the  life-history 
of  man,  the  lower  animals,  rocks  and 
fossils,  have  been  inspected,  the  vis- 
itor feels  impelled  to  revisit  the  Hall 
of  American  History,  for  he  has  prob- 
ably already  walked  through  it  on 
entering  the  main  door  of  the  Mu- 
seum. Here  are  the  objects  which 
appeal  most  forcibly  to  his  pride  and 
patriotism,  stirring  his  blood  and 
quickening  his  pulse,  as  he  gazes  on 
the  priceless  relies  of  Washington, 
Grant,  Lincoln,  Sherman,  Hancock, 
Sheridan,  Jackson  and  a  host  of 
ethers. 

The  Washington  relics  include  such 
articles   as  the   uniform   he   wore   as 


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Washington  Relics  from  Mt.  Vernon 


507 

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Washington  Relic.    China  and  Porcelain  from  Mt.  Vernon 


commander-in-chief,  on  the  occasion 
of  resigning  his  commission  at  An- 
napoHs,  his  camp  chest  with  its  pew- 
ter dishes,  cooking  utensils,  etc., 
which  he  used  during  the  Revolution- 
ary War,  and  many  other  articles  of 
rare  and  curious  interest. 

The  famous  Grant  relics  were  pre- 
sented to  the  United  States  in  1885  by 
Mrs.  Julia  Dent  Grant  and  William 
H.  Vanderbilt.  They  include  the 
sword  of  Don  el  son,  presented  by  of- 
ficers of  the  Army  after  the  fall  of  its 
fort;  the  New  York  sword,  voted  by 
citizens  at  the  Sanitary  Commission 
Fair  in  1864;  the  sword  of.  Chatta- 
nooga,^ presented  by  the  citizens  of 
Galena,  Illinois;  his  Army    commis- 


sions, the  resolutions  and  notes  of 
thanks  of  Congress;  a  large  gold 
medal  presented  by  Congress  for  his 
signal  victories,  numerous  gifts  from 
foreign  potentates  on  the  occasion  01 
his  famous  tour  around  the  world, 
and  other  equally  interesting  memora- 
bilicB, 

In  the  same  hall  are  also  installed 
raementos  of  the  War  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, the  War  with  Mexico,  the  W^ar 
of  the  Rebellion,  the  War  with  Spain, 
including  weapons,  flags  and  uni- 
iorms,  captured  at  Manila,  Porto  Rico 
and  Cuba. 

There  are  also  special  exhibits  il- 
lustrating the  principal  religions  of 
the  world,  and  divided  into  the  follow- 


508 


China  Presented  to  Martha  Washington  by  Lafayette 

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ing   sections:    Biblico- Judaic ;    Chris- 
tian ;     Assyro-Babylonian ;     Hittite ; 
Graeco-Rojnan,     Brahmanistic,     and 
•Buddhistic. 

This  little  sketch  of  a  few  of  the 
most  attractive  exhibits  conveys  but 
a  very  imperfect  idea  of  the  scope  and 
extent  of  the  National  collections. 
Nor  could  it  be  otherwise  in  a  lim- 
ited article,  for  the  reader,  if  he  has 


Technology,'  Graphic  Arts,  Ceramics. 
Religions,  Photography,  Music,  Med- 
icine and  others. 

The  Biological  exhibits,  includ- 
ing the  zoological  and  botanical  col- 
lections, are  grouped  under  the  heads 
of  Mammals,  Birds,  and  Birds'  Eggs, 
Reptiles  and  Batrachians,  Mollusks, 
Insects,  Fishes,  Marine  inverte- 
brates,   Worms,    Comparative    An- 


General  Grant's  Swords,  Epaulets,  Field-Glass,  Etc. 


not  visited  the  Museum,  will  readily 
comprehend  from  the  following  expla- 
nation and  from  the  figures  already 
given,  how  great  is  the  diversity  and 
how  large  the  extent  of  the  depart- 
ments among  which  the  collections 
are  divided.  Thus,  under  Anthro- 
pology are  embraced  Ethnology,  His- 
toric   and     Prehistoric    Archaeology, 


atomy,  and  the  National  Herba- 
rium. 

In  the  Department  of  Geology  the 
collections  are  arranged  under  Phys- 
ical and  Chemical  Geology,  Mineral- 
ogy, Vertebrate  and  Invertebrate 
Paleontology,  and  Paleobotany. 

On  account  of  the  lack  of  space, 
the    archaeological    collections,  birds, 


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Children's  Room 


mollusks,  insects,  and  several  other 
important  dei>artnients  are  not  repre- 
sented at  all  in  the  Museum  building. 
And,  but  for  the  fact  that  the  Smith- 
sonian Institution  has  allowed  the  use 
of  the  greater  part  of  its  building  for 
Museum  purposes,  some  of  the 
510 


groups    above-mentioned    would    not 
have  any  representation  whatever. 

No  descriptive  account  of  the  Na- 
tional Museum  would  be  complete 
without  a  reference  to  the  Children's 
Room,  which  although  located  in  the 
Smithsonian  building,  is  to  all  intents 


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THE    UNITED   STATES   NATIONAL   MUSEUM 


$11 


and  purposes  a  part  of  the  Museum. 
This  attractive  exhibit,  prepared 
under  the  personal  supervision  of  Mr. 
S.  P.  Langley,  the  secretary  of  the  in- 
stitution, is  locajted  on  the  main  floor 
of  the  south  tower.  The  paneled 
walls  are  painted  in  several  shades  of 
green,  and  the  ceiling  is  prettily  dec- 
orated with  trellis  and  vine,  through 
which  are  seen  glimpses  of  sky  and 
cloud  with  here  and  there  a  bright 
plumaged  bird.  The  objects  exhib- 
ited in  this  room  include  cages  of  liv- 
ing birds  and  aquaria  with  fishes. 
The  cases,  adapted  as  to  height  espe- 
cially for  the  convenience  of  the  little 
ones,  are  filled  with  strange  and  very 
attractive  specimens  of  birds,  mam- 
mals, insects,  shell-fishes,  sponges, 
corals,  minerals  and  fossils.  To  the 
left  on  entering  are  the  "largest  and 
smallest  birds  of  prey,"  represented 
by  the  great  condor  of  the  Andes,  the 
bald  eagle,  and,  by  way  of  contrast, 
the  tiny  sparrow-hawk.  A  lot  of  "cu- 
rious birds"  come  next,  making  a  hu- 
morous display,  for  there  are  birds 
with  aprons,  crowns,  armor  and  veils 
that  look  as  if  they  were  dressed  up 
for  a  fancy  ball.  Next  come  the 
•'bright-colored  birds,"  including  the 
parakeet,  the  rose  cockatoo  of  Aus- 
tralia, the  crimson-winged  lory,  and 
many  others.  Arranged  next  in  order 
are  some  of  the  "common  birds  of 
Europe"  and  "familiar  birds  of  the 
United  States" ;  also  birds  with  curi- 
ous nests  and  eggs,  water-birds,  a 
lyre-bird,  with  his  magnificent  tail  and 
many  others.  Then  comes  a  startling 
little  exhibit  illustrating  the  almost 
magic  power  which  some  animals  arc 
able  to  exert,  in  order  to  shield  them- 
selves from  their  enemies  by  imitating 
their  surroundings.     This  instinct  is 


commonly  known  as  "protective 
mimicry,"  and  the  exhibit  is  labeled 
"How  Creatures  Hide."  There  are 
insects  resembling  leaves,  nests  that 
seem  to  belong  to  the  limbs  to  which 
they  are  attached,  a  tern's  eggs,  that 
look  for  all  the  world  like  pebbles, 
etc.,  etc. ;  and  yet  these  little  decep- 
tions which  nature  allows  some  of  her 
children  to  practise  doubtless  result  in 
the  prolongation  of  the  lives  of  the 
animals  so  concealed. 

Then  comes  a  case  of  "Pretty 
Shells,"  and  "Strange  Insects," 
"Corals  and  Sponges,"  "Minerals  and 
Fossils."  A  piece  of  flexible  sand- 
stone, which  bends  by  its  own  weight, 
is  in  the  last  case,  and  also  models  of 
the  biggest  lump  of  gold  in  the  world 
and  of  the  largest  diamond  ever  cut. 

The  Children's  Room  is  often 
crowded  almost  to  overflowing — and 
not  always  by  children  alone — a  fact 
which  attests  the  excellent  wisdom 
of  the  secretary  in  having  brought 
about  the  installation  of  this  bright 
and  unusually  entertaining  collection. 

A  museum  whose  collections  are 
regarded  as  complete  is  a  dead  mu- 
seum; and,  judged  from  this  stand- 
point, the  National  Museum  is  very 
much  alive  indeed ;  nay,  it  is  this  fact 
of  incompleteness  which  elicits  the 
best  work  from  the  Museum  staff, 
stimulates  the  authorities  toward 
reaching  a  higher  plane  and  promotes 
increased  effort  in  the  various  lines 
of  activity.  There  can  be  practically 
no  end  to  the  work  of  a  national  mu- 
seum in  a  country  of  such  vast  re- 
sources as  this.  In  the  zoological  and 
geological  departments  there  will  al- 
vays  be  materials  to  be  acquired  and 
studied  from  hitherto  unexplored  re- 
gions, fresh   collections  to  cull  from 

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THE    UNITED   STATES   NATIONAL   MUSEUM 


them  and  incorporate  what  is  best 
with  those  already  on  hand,  incom- 
plete series  to  be  filled  out,  and  old 
material  to  be  replaced  with  new, 
while  in  the  department  devoted  to 
man's  operations,  there  will  always  be 
ue\v  devices  to  demonstrate,  new 
technological  industries  to  exhibit, 
new.  phases  of  life,  forms  of  dress  and 
occupation  to  illustrate. 

Tlie  phenomenal  growth  of  the  Na- 
tional Museum  is  one  of  the  surest 
proofs  of  the  necessity  of  its  existence 
and  of  the  interest  which  all  loyal 
citizens  feel  in  its  welfare.  It  is  now 
the  recognized  depository  for  all  ob- 
jects of  scientific  and  artistic  interest 
which  come  into  the  possesssion  of  the 
government,  and  among  its  functions 
none  is  of  more  pressing  importance 
than  to  preserve  these  treasures  and 
to  administer  them  so  as  to  make 
them  serve  the  most  useful  needs  for 
those  who  desire  to  examine  or  study 
them.  Its  collections  have  increased 
about  twenty-five  fold  in  the  last  two 
decades,  and  still,  without  special  ef- 
fort to  obtain  more,  excepting  in  cer- 
tain directions,  there  is  being  received 
yearly  a  vast  quantity  of  fresh  mate- 
rial. Last  year  the  number  of  speci- 
mens received  was  nearly  four  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand.  This  in- 
crease is  largely  from  private  and  un- 
expected sources.  Almost  every  day 
gifts  are  received  from  persons  who 
have  recently  visited  the  Museum 
and,  on  returning  home,  feel  impelled 
to  send  some  contribution  to  the  estab- 
lishment where  such  pleasant  and  prof- 
itable entertainment  was  afforded  them. 

But  the  entertainment  of  the  public, 
however  proper,  and  desirable,  is  not 
the  only  direction  in  which  the  Mu- 
seum is  fulfilling  its  duty.     Such  an 


institution  with  its  vast  scientific  ma- 
terials and  its  facilities  for  investiga- 
tion, must  rapidly  become  a  prom- 
inent centre  of  intellectual  activity, 
the  advantages  of  which,  as  I  have  al- 
ready endeavored  to  show,  benefit  the 
student  in  almost  every  line  of  scien- 
tific work  who  cares  to  seek  its  aid. 
This  may  be  imparted  in  any  of  the 
ways  already  pointed  out,  or  may  be 
sought  through  correspondence.  No 
letter  is  slighted,  and  the  technical 
knowledge  which  the  Museum  stall 
has  acquired,  is  freely  given  for  the 
asking.  Not  less  than  eight  to  ten 
thousand  letters  of  this  character  are 
answered  every  year.  Specimens  un- 
familiar to  the  owner  are  sent  to  the 
Museum  for  identification,  and  here 
a^ain  the  time  of  the  Museum  special- 
ists is  freely  given  to  the  inquiring 
public.  Several  hundreds  of  such 
sendings  are  examined  and  reported 
on  every  year. 

The  technical  publications  of  the 
Museum  are  furnished  free  of  charge 
to  any  one  engaged  in  a  study  of  the 
forms  to  which  they  relate,  besides  be- 
ing sent  to  a  large  number  of  care- 
fully selected  libraries,  while  the 
more  popular  series  of  papers,  pub- 
lished for  the  most  part  in  the  Annual 
Reports,  are  distributed  to  apphcants 
without  any  restrictions  whatever, 
excepting  the  rather  narrow  Hmita- 
tions  imposed  by  the  small  extent  of 
the  editions.  The  publications  of  the 
Museum  are  now  embraced  in  nine- 
teen volumes  of  reports,  twenty-five 
volumes  of  proceedings  and  fifty-two 
bulletins,  besides  a  special  series  of 
bulletins  in  quarto  size,  a  form  adopted 
only  where,  on  account  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  illustrations  an-d  for  other 
urgent  reasons,  a  page  larger  than  the 


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THE   UNITED   STATES   NATIONAL   MUSEUM 


513 


octavo  size  has  seemed  to  be  espe- 
cially desirable. 

The  library  of  the  Museum  is  an- 
other important  factor  in  its  all-round 
usefulness.  It  now  contains  about 
17,000  volumes,  and  47,000  parts  of 
serials,  pamphlets,  etc.,  which,  thanks 
to  the  efficient  regulations  and  broad 
policy  laid  down  by  the  librarian,  Dr. 
Cyrus  Adler,  are  always  ready  for  use 
at  short  notice.  In  these  and  many 
other  ways  the  Museum  is  constantly 
demonstrating  the  influence  of  its  op- 
erations and  is  showing  to  the  world 
that  it  is  a  living  and  forceful  organ- 
ization. 

For  nearly  two  decades  it  has  been 
evident  that  the  present  building  is 
wholly  inadequate  for  its  purposes. 
Valuable  collections  have  been  stored 
away,  and  indeed  the  strain  in  carry- 
ing on  properly  the  various  opera- 
tions germane  to  a  large  museum,  due 
in  part  to  insufficient  exhibition 
space,  and  also  in  presenting  a  satis- 
factory series  of  exhibits  for  the  delec- 
tation and  education  of  the  public,  has 
been  so  great  that  the  tendency  on  the 
part  of  the  authorities  has  been  rather 
to  discourage  further  accessions  to 
the  collections.  But  notwithstanding 
this,  they  have  now  grown  to  enor- 
mous proportions,  and  at  last  aftef 
many  years  of  waiting  a  new  building 
has  been  promised  by  Congress,  and 
the  long  and  patient  efforts  of  Secre- 
tary Langley  have  been  crowned  with 
success.  It,  came  almost  like  an  elec- 
tric flash.  There  had  for  some  time 
been  a  growing  hope,  it  is  true,  that 
there  was  ground  for  encouragement, 
but  it  was  not  until  late  last  winter 
when  the  plans,  which  the  Assistant 
Secretary  had  labored  so  long  to  pre- 
pare, were  presented  to  Congress  and 


the  needs  of  a  new  building  were  once 
more  fully  explained,  that  the  long 
looked-for  victory  came,  and  in  a  de- 
gree which  was  more  than  gratifying 
to  the  Museum  and  the  people  at 
large. 

A  building,  upon  the  construction 
of  which  the  generous  sum  of  $3,500,- 
coo  is  to  be  expended,  has  now  been 
authorized,  and  by  the  time  the  read- 
ers of  the  New  England  Magazine 
are  perusing  this  number,  the  ground 
will  no  doubt  have  been  broken.  The 
site  chosen  is  central  between  Ninth 
and  Twelfth  Streets,  northwest,  and 
to  the  north  of  the  present  building. 
The  new  building  will  be  four  hun- 
dred and  eighty-six  feet  long  and 
three  hundred  and  forty-five  feet 
broad,  with  a  height  of  four  stories. 
It  will  have  an  available  space  of  four 
hundred  thousand  square  feet — or 
about  double  that  of  the  present 
building.  Thus  the  national  collec- 
tions will  be  exhibited  over  an  area 
three  times  as  large  as  the  present  ac- 
commodations afford.  It  is  expected 
that  the  present  building  will  here- 
after be  devoted  to  the  industrial  arts, 
including  the  already  immense  collec- 
tions on  hand  and  many  others 
which,  it  is  thought,  will  be  secured 
by  the  time  the  new  structure  is  ready 
for  occupancy. 

The  accompanying  picture  of  the 
proposed  neAv  building  was  prepared 
at  a  time  when  it  was  expected  that 
brick  would  be  used  in  its  construc- 
tion. Owing  to  the  liberal  increase  in 
the  amount  of  money  authorized  by 
Congress  granite  will  be  used  instead, 
and  certain  changes  in  detail  will  be 
made,  which,  however,  will  not  mate- 
rially alter  its  general  appearance,  as 
here  shown. 

Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


The  Mavor  of  Swltchburg 

By  Lewis  E.  MacBrayne 


WHEN  Horatio  Baldwin, 
bachelor  and  man  of 
property,  was  elected 
Mayor  of  Switchburg, 
with  a  platform  but  without  a  party, 
the  political  prophets  declared  that 
reform  was  no  longer  dead  in  the 
land,  and  that  the  women  had  become 
an  important  factor  in  the  politics  of 
the  city.  For  the  Switchburg  Wo- 
men's Club,  under  the  leadership  of 
its  energetic  young  president,  Eldora 
Paul,  had  been  responsible  for  the 
starting  of  a  citizens'  movement  that 
had  overthrown  party  "machines"  and 
carried  the  election  by  a  safe  majority. 
But  when  Horatio  Baldwin,  still 
standing  upon  his  platform,  if  lacking 
an  organized  party — ^had  completed  the 
tenth  month  of  his  administration, 
and  the  time  was  drawing  near  for 
the  nominations  to  be  made  again — ^ho 
had  become,  if  the  partisan  press  of 
the  city  was  to  be  believed,  the  most 
unmanageable  chief  executive  that  the 
city  had  ever  seen,  and  stood  no  more 
chance  of  being  re-elected  than  did 
the  citizens  of  escaping  their  tax 
bills. 

Reform  had  been  a  platitude,  he 
made  it  a  practice;  and,  as  it  hap- 
pened, the  city  government  offered  an 
exceptional  field  for  operations.  Had 
he  rested  after  removing  certain  no- 
torious heads  of  departments,  the  citi- 
zens would  have  applauded.  But  he 
did  not  stop  there.  He  probed  much 
deeper,  until,  in  searching  certain 
contracts  for  lighting,  paving,  and 
5i4 


city  supplies,  he  reached  citizens  of 
more  or  less  respectability,  anJ 
brought  upon  his  head  a  storm  of  op- 
position and  abuse  that  might  have 
alarmed  a  less  conservative  man.  To 
tell  the  truth,  Mr.  Baldwin  gave  no 
indication  that  he  was  aware  at  all  of 
what  the  public  was  saying  concern- 
ing him;  he  was  a  law  unto  himself, 
and  in  vain  did  the  politicians  advise 
him. 

Where  his  own  executive  powers 
were  not  sufficient,  he  sought  the  as- 
sistance of  the  district  attorney  and 
the  grand  jury ;  until  Switchburg  mis- 
demeanors became  a  feature  of  the 
criminal  court.  With  so  many 
men  of  fairly  high  degree  dis- 
graced, and  so  many  men  of  low 
degree  no  longer  drawing  sustenance 
from  padded  pay  rolls,  the  tide  of 
opposition  grew  until  it  reached  the 
regular  party  headquarters,  and  the 
leaders  of  both  parties  combined  to 
lay  the  Hon.  Horatio  Baldwin  once 
and  forever  upon  the  political  shelf. 
They  put  their  heads  together  to  turn 
what  is  known  in  politics  as  a  "trick" ; 
and  it  was  a  good  one.  By  skilful 
masculine  manipulation  they  induced 
the  Switchburg  Women's  Qub,  after 
a  stormy  session,  to  vote  to  take  no 
further  part  in  the  municipal  cam- 
paign. Surely  now  the  Mayor  was 
without  a  recognized  prop  to  support 
him  against  the  "fusion"  candidate 
promptly  nominated,  with  mock 
pledges  of  reform,  by  the  two  regular 
parties. 


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THE  MAYOR  OF  SWITCHBURG 


515 


On  a  morning  in  November,  just 
after  the  events  cited  above,  Jack 
Haliday,  private  secretary  to  the 
Mayor,  sat  at  his  desk  in  City  Hall 
awaiting  the  arrival  of  his  chief. 
There  was  a  litter  of  municipal  papers 
before  him,  and  his  eyes  were  fixed 
upon  a  book  of  stenographic  notes, 
both  lengthy  and  perplexing.  Mr. 
Haliday  had  previously  studied  poli- 
tics as  a  sociologist;  now  he  was  ob- 
serving its  practical  workings  at  close 
range,  and  the  nearness  wearied  him. 
The  door  leading  to  the  waiting-room 
was  opened  and  let  in  a  sound  of 
angry  voices. 

''Well?"  asked  Haliday  sternly,  as 
the  head  of  the  city  messenger  ap- 
peared. 

"Mr.  O'Toole  wants  to  see  the 
Mayor  at  once,"  said  the  messenger. 
He  was  a  survival  of  the  old  regime, 
too  inoflfensive  to  be  removed. 

"Don't  call  him  Mister  OToole," 
said  the  secretary  in  emphatic  retort. 
"No  man  who  is  such  a  disturber  of 
the  public  peace  has  a  right  to  the 
title.  Tell  OToole  that  he  can't  see 
the  Mayor.    You  tell  him  that." 

The  messenger  withdrew  to  the 
stormy  waiting-room,  and  the  secre- 
tary resumed  the  reading  of  his  short- 
hand notes.  He  was  thus  engaged 
when  Horatio  Baldwin  entered  by  the 
side  door,  and  proceeded  to  the  closet 
where  he  hung  his  tall  hat  and  frock 
coat.  If  the  fact  is  of  interest  to  you, 
he  was  40  years  old  and  good  looking ; 
yes,  quite  good  looking. 

The  secretary  arose  from  his  chair. 
"Good  morning,  Mr.  Mayor",  he  said. 
It  was  a  mark  of  respect  that  he  inva- 
riably paid. 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Haliday.  Any- 
thing of  great  importance?"     This, 


in  turn,  wa$  his  regular  saluta- 
tion. 

"Not  particularly,  your  honor,"  re- 
sponded the  secretary,  with  half  an 
eye  upon  his  notes.  "That  evidence 
in  the  assessors'  hearing  looks  bad, 
particularly  bad,  sir.  In  fact,  it  seems 
to  me  that  it's  another  case  for  the 
grand   jury." 

"Very  well,  then.  Has  Miss  Paul 
called  today?" 

"No,  sir.  The  waiting-room  is 
filled  principally  with  that  man 
O'Toole  and  his  friends." 

The  Mayor  smiled.  "O'Toole  has 
a  place  in  politics,  Mr.  Haliday,"  he 
said;  "but  perhaps  the  place  should 
be  abolished."  O'Toole  was  a  whip 
politician  and  a  thorn  in  the  flesh. 

The  door  of  the  waiting-room 
opened  again,  but  the  angry  voices 
were  hushed  for  the  time.  "Miss 
Paul,  your  honor,"  announced  the 
messenger. 

"Certainly,  show  her  in,"  said  the 
Mayor.  "Mr.  Haliday,  drop  in  to  the 
solicitor's  office  and  show  that  asses- 
sors' testimony  to  him." 

Then  Eldora  Paul  swept  into  the 
room;  Eldora  la  Superba  they  had 
called  her  back  in  the  old  days  at 
Smith  College,  though  that  was  but 
eight  years  ago;  Eldora  the  Leader, 
also  destined  for  high  places,  as  they 
were  seen,  as  in  a  vision,  through  col- 
lege eyes.  Eight  years !  What  brides 
may  be  led  to  the  altar  in  that  time, 
what  ambitions  may  be  laid  aside. 
Oh  Eldora,  if  only  the  class  of  which 
you  were  the  guiding  spirit  could 
look  up  from  its  household  and  peda- 
gogic duties  for  a  moment  now  to  see 
you  carry  your  head  with  the  old 
spirit  as  you  tread  the  well-worn  car- 
pet in  the  Mayor's  officei  a  black-eyed 


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THE   MAYOR   OF  SWITCHBURa 


and  red-lipped  exponent  of  the 
Woman  in  Politics ! 

"Three  whole  days,"  said  Horatio 
Baldwin,  offering  her  a  leather- 
bound  chair.  "You  know,  Eldora, 
that  three  whole  days  is  a  very  long 
time." 

But  Miss  Paul  quite  overlooked  the 
personal  tone  in  his  voice.  "I  have 
come  to  see  you  about  the  Women's 
Club.  Of  course  you  read  of  it  in 
the  newspapers.  It  is  outrageous,  I 
can  hardly  discuss  it  yet."  There 
was  an  angry  flush  in  her  face. 

"Yes,  I  know,"  replied  the  Mayor 
quietly.  "You  mustn't  take  that  to 
heart,  though.  Woman's  place — 
woman's  place  is  in  the  home.  When 
it  comes  to  the  individual,  she  does 
as  her  husband  wishes;  unless,  per- 
haps, he  may  carry  out  her  desires. 
It's  an  interesting  problem,  you  see, 
one  that  you  and  I  are  hardly  quali- 
fier, as  yet,  to  pass  upon.  The  blame 
in  this  case  is  not  upon  the  women, 
but  upon  the  men." 

But  she  was  not  there  to  be  com- 
forted, or  to  have  the  offence  of  the 
women  whom  she  had  tried  to  lead 
condoned.  "It  is  wrong,"  she  said; 
"wrong  in  theory  and  in  practice. 
They  have  stood  for  honesty  in  poli- 
tics and  now  they  are  without  hon- 
esty of  purpose.  They  have  pre- 
tended that  they  were  enlightened 
women,  and  now  they  allow  them- 
selves to  be  pulled,  like  puppets,  by 
the  wires  of  shameless  manipulation." 
Miss  Paul,  like  Mr.  Haliday,  was  get- 
ting very  close  to  politics,  and  there 
was  a  suspicion  of  moisture  about 
her  fine  eyes. 

Horatio  Baldwin  turned  about  to 
his  desk  and  gathered  several  sheets 
of  typewritten  paper  into  his  hands; 


an  indication  that  he  was  about  to 
change  the  subject.  "There  are  one 
or  two  matters  of  business  for  us  to 
consider,"  he  said  in  a  brisk,  practical 
voice.  "I  find  that  the  assessors 
have  been  padding  the  voting  lists, 
and  have  clearly  committed  a  crim- 
inal offence.  Do  you  wish  the  mat- 
ter placed  in  the  hands  of  the  district 
attorney  ?" 

"Certainly,"  she  replied. 

"Very  well.  Then  there  is  the 
matter—" 

The  telephone  on  his  desk  gave  a 
sharp  ring.  **  Hello,"  he  said  pick- 
ing up  the  receiver.  "The  Mayor? 
Yes,  the  Mayor  is  here." 

He  made  a  dumb  pretence  of  offer- 
ing her  the  telephone,  but  took  the 
message.  WTien  he  had  finished,  she 
turned  on  him  with  trouble  in  her 
eyes. 

"You  mean  that  I  am  the  real 
mayor,"  she  said.  "That  is  what  you 
really  mean." 

"No  offence  intended,"  he  hastened 
to  reply  with  mock  apology. 

"And  you  believe  that  because  you 
have  allowed  me  to  have  my  own 
silly  way,"  she  continued,  "and  have 
done  as  I  wished  you  to  do  in  all 
things,  you  are  now  without  a  party 
or  hope  of  a  renomination.  Very 
well,  if  I  have  spoiled  your  chances  I 
will  make  them  good  again." 

She  brought  pne  small  gloved  fist 
down  on  the  corner  of  his  oak  desk 
furiously;  though  at  the  moment  she 
had  not  the  slightest  idea  of  how  she 
was  going  to  improve  his  chances, 
even  remotely.  But  Horatio  Baldwin 
thought  her,  at  that  moment,  the 
handsomest  woman  that  he  had  ever 
seen. 

"It  was  I  who    dragged    you  into 


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THE   MAYOR   OF   SWITCHBURG 


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this,"  she  said,  before  he  could  stem 
the  tide  of  her  remarks.  "I  thought, 
in  my  pride,  that  if  a  woman  had  a 
chance  in  politics  she  could  reform  a 
city,  really  reform  it.  You  lent  your- 
self to  it,  and  I  was  too  blind  to  see 
what  the  consequences  might  be  for 
you.  YouVe  earned  another  term; 
you  must  have  it.  They  can't  pre- 
vent you  from  running  on  nomination 
papers,  and  something  must  happen  to 
arouse  the  public  before  election  day.*' 

He  smiled  but  shook  his  head. 
"To  tell  you  the  truth,  I  have  had 
quite  enough  of  politics  for  the  time 
being,"  he  said.  "I  only  went  into 
this  for  you." 

"Then  can  you  not  remain  in  it  for 
the  same  reason?"  she  asked  impetu- 
ously, quite  careless  of  the  conse- 
quences. 

"Yes,  for  the  same  reason,"  he  re- 
plied quickly.  "Only  with  this  con- 
dition, that  the  woman  for  whom  I 
do  it  must  promise  to  become  my 
wife." 

She  arose  from  her  chair,  startled, 
this  fine  Eldora,  who  believed  that  it 
was  for  politics  alone  that  she  cared. 
"Do  you  mean  that  you  have  been 
helping  me  all  along  for — for  this?" 
she  stammered. 

"What  a  marvellous  faith  in  man- 
kind!" was  all  that  he  could  say  in 
reply;  but  he  wondered  whether,  in 
all  the  country  there  was  a  mayor,  not 
in  love,  who  would  have  allowed  a 
woman  to  dictate  the  rule  of  a  city  as 
he  had  done. 

Then  suddenly  she  burst  into  tears, 
this  superb  Eldora,  who  had  preached 
at  college  that  marriage  was  a  bond- 
age, and  had  tried  to  practice  in  the 
world  a  creed  of  fellowship  with  men ; 
and  Horatio  Baldwin  took  her  in  his 


arms  and  comforted  her.  For  so  will 
it  be  to  the  end  of  time. 

"But  I  won't  marry  you  unless  you 
are  elected  Mayor  again,"  she  said  at 
length.  The  old  spirit  was  not  all 
gone  out  of  her  by  any  means. 

"Then  I  will  run  on  nomination 
papers  and  win  the  election,"  he  said. 
And  the  simple  faith  in  himself  shown 
in  saying  this  was  destined  to  work  a 
political  miracle;  though  at  the  mo- 
ment the  effect  seemed  no  more  far- 
reaching  than  the  upsetting  of  a  Jap- 
anese screen  that  stood  between  his 
desk  and  the  door  of  the  reception 
room,  and  the  disclosing  of  OToole, 
whip  politician,  behind  it. 

Haliday,  reentering  the  room  by 
the  side  door  at  this  opportune  mo- 
ment, was  startled  at  the  tableaux; 
the  Mayor,  with  one  arm  about  the 
president  of  the  Women's  Club,  and 
O'Toole,  with  his  back  to  the  door, 
his  red  face  turned  defiantly  to  the 
surprised  couple,  and  from  them  to 
the  inoffensive  screen  upon  the  floor. 

"Mr.  O'Toole  came  in  unannounced 
and  upset  the  screen,"  said  the  May- 
or. "You  will  kindly  show  him 
out,  Mr.  Haliday." 

"The  introosion  was  unintentional,*' 
muttered  the  politician,  "but  owinjs^ 
to  the  pecoolyor  circumstances,  I  will 
agree  to  keep  silent  upon  certain 
terms  and  considerations." 

"Mr.  Haliday,  throw  that  man 
out,"  thundered  the  Mayor;  and  the 
politician  retreated  hastily. 

At  party  headquarters  that  night, 
Mr.  O'Toole  announced  to  the  faith- 
ful that  he  held  the  trump  card  of  the 
campaign  up  his  sleeve.  It  had  been 
announced  in  the  public  press  during 
the  afternoon  that  Mayor  Baldwin 
would  run  on  nomination  papers,  and 


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THE    MAYOR   OF  SWITCHBURG 


would  conduct  a  vigorous  campaign. 
"It's  not  enough  to  beat  that  man/* 
declared  the  leader.  "For  poorsonal 
reasons,  important  only  to  myself,  he 
must  be  buried.  Do  you  hear  that? 
He  don't  want  to  be  Mayor ;  he  wants 
to  marry  a  girl.  You  keep  your  eye 
on  the  papers  in  the  morning.  I've 
tipped  'em  off." 

And  they  did;  not  only  they,  but 
others.  By  noon  it  was  all  over  the 
streets.  By  night  it  was  the  one 
theme  of  conversation  throughout  the 
city.  Baldwin  had  proposed  to  the 
president  of  the  Women's  Club,  and 
his  acceptance  depended  upon  his  re- 
election, 

"Now  that  man's  career  is  dead," 
announced  Mr.  O'Toole  triumph- 
antly.    But  it  was  not. 

Horatio  Baldwin's  campaign  be- 
came the  personal  affair  of  every 
woman  in  Switchburg.  In  vain  the 
politicians  ridiculed  it,  and  offered 
new  pledges  of  reform.  The  tide 
turned  unmistakably  to  the  man  with- 
out a  party;  ministers  preached  in 
favor  of  his  election,  lawyers  argued 
for  him,  and  even  the  Women's  Club 
— in  the  absence  of  the  president — 
passed  a  new  set  of  resolutions. 
Business  men  made  predictions  and 
club  men  laid  wagers;  and  finally 
came  the  day  of  election. 

The  Mayor  closed  the  roll-top  of  his 
desk  at  City  Hall  with  a  snap  late  in 
the  afternoon.  "I  am  going  over  to 
call  on  Miss  Paul  this  evening,  Mr. 
Haliday,"  he  said  to  the  secretary. 
"I  want  you  to  telephone  me  when 
the  result  of  the  election  is  known; 
not  before,  you  understand." 


So  when  the  evening  came,  and 
thousands  of  people  blocked  the 
streets  in  front  of  the  newspaper  of- 
fices; when  politicians  figured  pre- 
cinct returns  with  anxious  pencils, 
and  office  seekers  eagerly  waited  to 
learn  where  they  must  curry  favor; 
or,  to  become  personal,  while  Mr. 
O'Toole  sat  with  his  feet  upon  a  table 
at  party  headquarters,  enveloped  by 
smoke  and  surrounded  by  his  satel- 
lites, Horatio  Baldwin  sat  before  an 
open  fire  in  the  home  of  Eldora  Paul 
— discussing  his  chances  of  election? 
No;  reading  aloud  a  Scotch  story  by 
Barrie. 

The  telephone  in  the  reception  hall 
rang;  three  sharp  calls,  repeated. 
Miss  Paul  started  nervously;  Mr. 
Baldwin  continued  his  reading;  the 
maid  passed  through  from  the 
dining-room  and  answered  the 
call. 

"If  you  please,  ma'm,  Mr.  Bald- 
win is  wanted." 

Then  Mr.  Baldwin  ceased  reading, 
and  reached  the  telephone  in  five  long 
strides. 

"Haliday?  Yes,  all  right;  go 
ahead.  Keep  out.  Central.  Go  ahead, 
Haliday." 

The  reception  hall  became  very 
quiet ;  so  quiet,  that  Eldora  Paul,  who 
had  entered  it  softly,  could  hear  the 
vibrant  voice  of  the  secretary  as  dis- 
tinctly as  though  she  held  the  re- 
ceiver : 

"The  Eagle  has  just  put  out  this 
board :  'Eldora  Paul  elected  mayor  of 
Switchburg  by  large  majority.'  Con- 
gratu — " 

But  Horatio  Baldwin  dropped  the 
receiver  at  this  p«int. 


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Some  Side-Lights  of  the  Clergyman's 

Profession 

By  "Graham  Mac" 

Editor's  Note:— The  following  article  will  undoubtedly  attract  much  attention,  for  the 
genuine  ring  of  its  descriptions  shows  that  its  author  knows  clearly  the  life  of  which  he 
writes.  It  is  reasonable  that  he  should  prefer  to  use  a  pseudonym  not  because  of  the 
criticism  which  some  of  his  strictures  may  provoke,  but  because  of  local  reasons. 


OF  the  three  leading  pro- 
fessions of  modern  times, 
the  Law,  Medicine  and  the 
Ministry,  the  latter  is  prob- 
ably the  least  known,  in  its  nature 
and  details,  by  the  world  in  general, 
llie  full  glare  of  publicity  that  falls 
tipon  the  clergyman  and  his  calling 
as  he  plies  his  profession  does  not  re- 
veal much  of  its  real  nature  or  give  a 
true  and  just  view  of  it. 

It  is  a  quite  common  impression  in 
the  world  at  large  that  the  minister's 
vocatioa  is  a  sinecure;  that  he  is  a 
stranger  to  real  work  and  has  an  easy 
time  of  it  generally,  with  little  to  try 
his  spirit  and  disturb  his  peace.  His 
duty  is  thought  to  be  to  "preach  the 
Gospel"  (whatever  that  may  mean 
as  commonly  used)  ;  to  visit  the  ami- 
able ladies  of  his  society,  attend  pink 
teas,  look  pleasant  at  all  times  (except 
at  funerals) ;  to  read  the  choice  fic- 
tion, be  attentive  and  agreeable  to  his 
influential  parishoners,  live  in  a  house 
provided  by  the  church  and  free  of 
rent;  and  to  enjoy  the  delights  of  a 
land  that  flows  with  milk  and  honey. 
However,  it  is  certain  that  the 
glamour  of  the  public  and  popular 
view  of  the  minister's  life  and 
calling  is  beginning  to  fade.    This  is 


evidenced  by  the  fact  that,  despite 
free  tuition,  aid  funds,  and  other 
cheapening  inducements  offered  to 
theological  students,  the  aspirants  for 
the  clerical  profession  are  falling  off 
in  numbers,  and  the  best  blood  and 
brain  and  training  in  the  rising  gen- 
eration is  turning  to  other  pursuits. 
That  the  profession  of  the  minis- 
try, except  in  a  comparatively  few  in- 
stances, is  a  financial  sacrifice  is  well 
known,  a  commonly  accepted  fact. 
The  average  clergyman  of  the  coun- 
try towns  and  smaller  cities  has  to 
live  on  a  scale  of  plainness  and  self- 
denial  no  other  class  of  men  of  equal 
training,  ability  and  tastes  would  ac- 
cept if  it  were  possible  for  them  to 
raise  it  by  entering  some  other  occu- 
pation. It  is  a  safe  and  conservative 
statement  that  the  majority  of  clergy- 
men could  increase  their  income  from 
a  third  to  a  half,  without  increasing 
their  living  expenses,  in  half  a  hun- 
dred other  vocations  they  might  enter. 
And  moreover,  the  small  salary  the 
average  clergyman  draws  does  not 
come  in  regular  and  full  payments 
monthly,  not  always  in  quarterly  ones 
even,  and  never  in  weekly  wages,  as 
do  ^  the  salaries  of  most  other  em- 
ployees, but  is  often,  if  not  chiefly. 


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SOME   SIDE   LIGHTS 


paid  in  driblets  and  when  the  hard- 
pressed  "parson"  feels  obliged  to  go 
and  ask  for  it.  It  is  quite  within  the 
bounds  of  sober  truth  to  say  that  the 
negligent,  unbusinesslike,  and  often 
unethical  dealings  of  churches  with 
their  ministers  in  the  matter  of  salaries 
would  be  condemned  by  every  secular 
concern  of  any  character  and  standing. 
Yet  in  religious  institutions  the  good 
people  think  it  is  all  right  or  think 
nothing  at  all  about  it. 

And  in  addition  to  a  meagre  salary, 
paid  in  a  hap-hazard,  dribbling  fash- 
ion, the  clerical  profession  is  the  one 
calling  in  the  world  in  which  it  is  con- 
sidered ignoble  for  a  man  to  gain  a 
competence  or  even  get  enough  ahead 
to  square  himself  with  old  age  or  mis- 
fortune, and  furnish  his  home  and  ed- 
ucate his  children  as  he  would  like  to 
do.  The  minister  that  seeks  for  a 
larger  salary  and  to  accumulate  a 
property,  even  of  very  moderate  di- 
mensions, for  his  present  uses  or  fu- 
ture enjoyment,  is  considered  worldly 
and  lacking  in  Christian  spirit,  and 
this,  in  the  face  of  the  fact  that  pul- 
pits for  ministers  above  the  age  of 
fifty  or  sixty  years  are  difficult  to  ob- 
tain, and  no  provision  is  made  by  the 
employers  he  serves  for  his  suste- 
nance when  he  is  no  longer  wanted  in 
the  ranks  of  his  calling. 

The  result  is  that  the  majority  of 
ministers  serve  the  churches  at  a  bare 
living  salary  until  the  age  of  three 
score  or  less,  and  then  are  without  em- 
ployment and  without  means,  have  no 
pulpit  and  no  income,  and  must  fin- 
ish out  their  days  at  such  other  work 
and  at  such  pay  as  they  can  secure. 
Of  course  there  are  striking  and  brill- 
iant exceptions  to  this  condition,  but 
it  accurately  represents  the  principle 


involved,  and,  to  a  large  extent,  the 
actual  fact. 

And  just  here  is  suggested  a  phase 
of  the  profession  that  is  unique  and 
characteristic.  It  is  the  premium  put 
by  the  churches  upon  youth  and  im- 
maturity in  their  ministers.  This 
fact,  so-  pronounced  in  the  ministry, 
is  characteristic  of  only  one  other  vo-. 
cation  of  modern  times.  Strange  as 
the  alliance  may  seem  the  stage  and 
pulpit  are  kindred  in  this  respect.  The 
church  and  the  theatre  are  the  two, 
and  the  only  two,  institutions  of  so- 
ciety that  seek  for  youth  and  imma- 
turity in  its  foremost  servants  in  pref- 
erence to  age  and  experience.  In  all 
other  callings,  long  years  of  service, 
large  experience,  matured  faculties, 
and  ripened  wisdom  are  in  demand 
for  the  highest  positions.  In  the 
theatrical  and  clerical  professon  just 
the  opposite  is  true. 

There  is  a  second  feature  of  the 
calling  that  is  not  commonly  consid- 
ered by  the  public  which  is  not  per- 
fectly delightful  and  which  has  a 
distinctly  ethical  quality.  It  is  the 
indifference  and  neglect  of  congrega- 
tions and  church  members  in  the  mat- 
ter of  attending  the  services  of  the 
church,  which  the  minister  is  chiefly 
engaged  to  conduct  and  principally 
works  to  make  helpful  and  enjoyable, 
to  all,  not  a  few.  Many  churches  or 
congregations  which  pay  satisfactory 
salaries  and  do  it  promptly  enough  are 
rather  shabby  in  their  treatment  of 
their  minister  in  this  particular.  And 
this  is  the  one  that  comes  the  closest 
to  his  heart,  his  sense  of  fairness,  and 
of  success  in  his  calling. 

With  an  honest  minister,  religion, 
his  preaching,  the  services  of  the 
church,  and  all  his  endeavors  for  the 


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OF   THE   CLERGYMAN'S   PROFESSION 


521 


good  life  in  others  (equally  with  him- 
self), are  primary  things,  the  things 
to  which  he  is  devoting  his  life,  and 
when  a  church  or  congregation  votes 
to  settle  him  as  their  minister  he  is 
led  to  suppose  that  with  all  those  who 
take  part  in  such  proceedings  these 
things  are  of  primary  importance  also ; 
at  least,  that  they  are  things  in  which 
they  are  vitally  interested.  But  it 
turns  out,  in  many  instances,  that 
preaching,  religion,  as  exercised  and 
manifested  in  church  attendance  and 
participation  in  the  services  of  the 
church,  is  altogether  a  secondary  con- 
sideration, or  of  no  consideration  at 
all. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  majority  of 
people  neglect  their  religion,  the  in- 
terests and  services  of  the  church,  the 
most  readily  of  any  and  upon  the 
slightest  pretext.  No  man  ever  neglects 
his  business  or  pleasure  or  social  duties 
for  such  trivia)  reasons  as  almost  hab- 
itually keep  him  from  church.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  church  attendance  is 
chiefly  a  matter  of  convenience  rather 
than  of  principle,  and  the  moral  sup- 
port of  the  minister  by  personal  at- 
tendance upon  his  preaching  and 
religious  services  a  fact  of  no  thought 
or  consequence  with  a  large  number 
of  the  laity. 

This  strikes  the  minister  as  rather 
shabby  if  not  unjust  treatment  and 
makes  his  work  discouraging,  his  en- 
thusiasm not  of  the  finest  and  his  life 
not  always  the  pleasantest.  It  puts 
him  in  the  position  of  the  skilled  la- 
borer who  is  engaged  to  do  a  fine 
piece  of  work  of  great  importance  by . 
an  employer  who  takes  no  personal 
interest  in  him  or  it,  and  never  comes 
round  to  see  how  it  is  being  done  and 
to  encourage  the  workman,  but  sim- 


ply sends  in  a  check  when  the  work 
is  finished.  Or  it  is  as  though  a  good 
housewife  is  to  give  a  dinner  to  a 
company  of  friends  of  the  family,  and 
they  all  accept  the  invitation  and  ex- 
press approval,  and  then,  with  great 
enthusiasm  and  pleasure  the  mistress 
of  the  home  begins  her  preparations; 
all  her  skill  and  training  as  a  house- 
keeper is  brought  into  play;  the  best 
linen  is  gotten  out ;  the  choice  china 
put  into  service;  the  silver  freshly 
polished;  for  a  week  mistress  and 
servant  plan  and  work  for  the  occa- 
sion and  all  is  ready  at  the  appointed 
hour,  and  then  only  a  paltry  few  of 
those  for  whom  all  this  was  done  are 
present  to  gladden  the  hostess's  heart 
and  enjoy  the  results  of  her  labor. 
We  can  all  imagine  a  person's  feelings 
in  either  of  these  instances  and  we 
would  not  envy  such  an  one  his  pleas- 
ure. 

Yet  this  is  practically  the  experi- 
ence that  comes  to  a  minister  a  good 
portion  of  the  time.  People  bring 
him  gifts  and  lavish  social  attention 
upon  him,  tell  him  how  much  they 
like  him  and  how  finely  he  does,  but 
the  things  he  craves  most,  the  things 
that  are  life  and  heart  and  joy  to  him, 
they  do  not  give, — their  faithful  pres- 
ence at  the  services  of  the  church 
when  he  comes  before  them  to  give 
the  fruits  of  his  toil,  the  glow  of  his 
thought,  and  the  warmth  of  his  heart. 
The  real  minister  hungers  and  thirsts 
for  the  presence  of  those  for  whom  he 
works  when  he  speaks;  his  spirit 
starves  and  his  heart  grows  cold  when 
this  is  denied  him. 

And  here  is  suggested  a  further 
fact  that  does  not  add  to  the  pure  de- 
light of  the  calling.  It  is,  what  shall  the 
minister  preach  ?  Every  true  preacher 


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SOME   SIDE   LIGHTS 


has  a  message  and  will  be  honest  and 
deliver  it  fearlessly.  But  no  mes- 
sage can  possibly  please  or  satisfy  all 
tlie  people  of  any  church  and  congre- 
gation, and  the  faithful  proclaiming 
of  it  brings  painful  consequences. 
The  elderly  ladies  want  to  hear  from 
the  "sacred  desk,"  as  they  style  it,  the 
rhapsodies  of  devotion,  piety  and 
faith,  the  sentiment  of  poetry^  the 
beauties  of  rhetoric,  a  sort  of  vague, 
glowing,  emotional,  other-world 
preaching.  The  men  who  are  in  the 
thick  of  the  fight  with  the  world  want 
virility  and  like  to  hear  good  sense 
and  able  thinking  applied  to  the  prin- 
ciples and  problems  of  life.  Between 
these  there  are  all  shades  of  taste. 
Some  want  silver-tongued  oratory, 
others  novelty  and  popular  up-to- 
dateness;  a  few  want  the  real  Gos- 
pel, soberly  spoken,  while  still  others 
want,  as  a  Methodist  layman  re- 
marked to  the  writer,  "  slop  fired  at 
them  out  of  a  Maxim  gun." 

To  the  true  minister  this  fact  is  a 
real  difficulty,  for  he  wants  to  preach 
truth  and  righteousness,  faith  and 
love,  and  would  like  to  help  all  and 
oflFend  none,  wants  to  inspire  and 
draw  all  toward  a  higher  life.  But 
this  he  finds  impossible,  and  he  has 
either  to  compromise  with  himself 
and  the  high  truths  of  Christianity,  or 
make  enemies  of  the  social,  political 
and  business  leaders  in  his  church, 
whose  methods  are  ignoble  and  their 
practices  unrighteous,  but  whose 
power  is  great,  or  forfeit  his  pulpit 
and  endanger  the  bread  and  butter 
of  his  family. 

A  noted  preacher  has  said,  "A  muz- 
zled pulpit  is  a  coward's  castle,"  and 
it  would  not  be  just  or  truthful  to  im- 
ply that  the  clergy  as  a  whole  were 


actually  occup>ing  such  a  position. 
Yet  it  is  true  that  the  average  minis- 
ter, owing  to  his  meagre  income  and 
inability  to  secure  positions  in  other 
callings  and  succeed  in  them,  is  to  a 
greater  or  less  degree  muzzled  in  his 
preaching;  he  must  be  tactful,  poli- 
tic and  subservient  to  the  extent  of 
limiting  his  freedom  of  utterance ; 
the  only  alternative  being  the  loss 
of  his  place  and  the  jeopardizing 
of  his  family's  comfort  and  suste- 
nance. 

As  an  instance  of  this  take  the 
recent  bribery  exposures  in  Rhode 
Island,  when  it  was  shown  by  the  at- 
tempts at  reform,  and  stated  on  the 
authority  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese, 
that  the  clergy  could  not  preach 
against  vote  buving,  so  general  was 
the  practice  in  the  churches,  without 
being  discharged  from  their  pulpits 
and  left  in  poverty.  So  they  took 
refuge  in  the  text  of  Paul's  **This 
one  thing  I  do,"  and  appHed  them- 
selves strictly  and  diligently  to 
preaching  what  is  called  "the  gospel," 
an  altogether  spineless  and  harmless 
proceeding. 

Allied  to  this  not  wholly  radiant 
phase  of  the  calling  is  that  of  the  au- 
tocratic one-man  rule  which  obtains 
in  many  churches.  It  is  a  common 
notion  and  one  much  exploited  now- 
adays that  organized  Christianity  is 
a  democracy,  but  the  fact  is  many  of 
the  churches  are  an  autocracy.  Not 
infrequently  one  man  practically  owns 
the  church  property,  and  literally  owns 
the  people  and  the  minister,  and  rules 
as  an  absolute  sovereign  all  its  affairs. 
The  following  is  a  case  in  point : 

A  young  minister  had  served  a  cer- 
tain rather  small  church  faithfully 
and    acceptably    for    a    considerable 


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period,  and  was  thinking  of  bettering 
his  condition  and  working  a  larger 
field.  To  this  end  he  was  occasion- 
ally preaching  in  other  pulpits,  al- 
ways supplying  his  own.  One  Sun- 
day it  was  rumored  among  the  con- 
gregation that  he  was  to  preach  as  a 
candidate  in  a  neighboring  city 
church  the  following  Sunday,  and  at 
the  close  of  the  service  that  morning 
the  chairman  of  the  committee  asked 
him  if  he  were  going  to  preach  in 

the  next  Sabbath,  and  on  being 

told  he  was,  replied  that  he  must  have 
his  resignation  ready  the  Monday 
morning  after,  as  he  would  have  to 
leave  them  if  he  preached  elsewhere 
again.  The  other  six  of  the  commit- 
tee came  to  the  pastor  later  and  ex- 
pressed their  regret  over  the  matter, 

but  said  that  if  Mr. said  he  must 

go,  they  could  do  nothing  about  it. 
So  the  minister  resigned,  and  at  last 
account  was  still  without  a  church, 
not  owing  to  scant  ability  but  scar- 
city of  opportunity. 

Another  phase  of  the  profession 
not  commonly  realized,  and  which  is 
not  altogether  pleasant,  is  the  lack  of 
personal  freedom  which  the  clergy- 
man's office  and  his  small  stipend  for 
service  entails.  It  means  in  some 
cases  the  stifling  of  his  intellect  or 
the  smothering  of  his  convictions,  and 
in  others  the  limiting  of  his  enjoy- 
ment of  certain  things  of  the  more 
cultured  life,  and  the  denial  of  their 
benefit  to  him  because  he  has  not  the 
money  to  pay  for  them.  With  tastes 
for  the  higher  things  of  culture  and 
refinement  and  the  power  to  appreciate 
them,  and  also  to  use  them,  the  minis- 
ter is  often  prohibited  from  enjoying 
them  because  he  is  in  a  condition  of 
pecuniary  slavery. 


Money  with  a  minister  means  free- 
dom as  truly  as-  it  does  with  all  other 
men,  freedom  to  go  and  see  and  learn 
things  of  value  and  great  pleasure 
to  him.  But  this  freedom  the  ma- 
jority of  clergymen  do  not  have. 
They  are  the  slaves  of  a  financial 
economy  which  renders  their  lives 
narrow  and  disappointing,  in  the 
range  of  broad  culture  and  the  per- 
sonal gratification  of  high  desires 
and  tastes.  The  charge  that  clergy- 
men are  all  notoriously  bad  financiers 
does  not  account  for  this  condition, 
for  very  many  of  them  manage  their 
small  incomes  and  expenditures  with 
an  astuteness  that  matches  that  of  the 
great  captains  of  finance.  With 
many  a  clergyman,  from  the  way  he 
is  able  to  furnish  his  home  to  the  pur- 
chase of  a  valuable  book,  the  going 
to  a  rare  lecture  or  concert,  or  at- 
tending a  great  convention,  is  one  con- 
tinuous process  of  denial  and  humili- 
ation, sweetened  only  with  the  ex- 
alted thought  that,  though  denied 
many  things,  he  is  faithfully  striving 
to  do  the  Master's  work  and  is  a  con- 
secrated witness  to  the  noblest 
things  of  life. 

Nor  is  this  the  only  lack  of  free- 
dom the  profession  carries  with  it. 
The  minister's  habits  and  conduct, 
and  his  social,  religious  and  political 
beliefs  or  opinions  are  all  required  to 
conform  to  conventional  standards. 
If  he  becomes  original,  independent 
and  a  reformer  he  is  condemned  by 
his  employers  and  driven  forth  as  un- 
worthy of  his  position.  The  habits 
and  beliefs  that  are  considered  well 
enough  for  others  are  not  deemed 
expedient  or  right  for  him.  The 
moment  he  begins  to  exercise  per- 
sonal freedom  in  the  matters  of  re- 


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SOME   SIDE   LIGHTS 


Hgion,  politics  and  society  he  finds 
restraint  put  upon  him  and  comes  to 
ofrief. 

For  example,  a  minister  was 
turned  down  by  his  church  for  voting 
for  Mr.  Bryan.  Anotlier  was  forced 
to  resign  because  he  believed  in  So- 
cialism as  a  form  of  government ;  an- 
other to  withdraw  from  his  pulpit  be- 
cause his  views  on  the  Bible  and  the 
Communion  did  not  exactly  coincide 
with  those  held  by  the  church ;  while 
others  are  maligned  because  they 
smoke  and  attend  the  theatre  and  ad- 
vocate freedom  and  self-control  in- 
stead of  prohibition  in  the  matter  of 
temperance,  and  are  persecuted  for 
speaking  their  mind  and  telling  the 
truth  about  churches  and  the  life  of 
church  people. 

In  the  large  sense  the  growing,  sin- 
cere, and  honest  minister  does  not 
have  freedom,  is  not  free  to  act  out 
himself,  realize  his  desires,  and  speak 
his  conviction  as  men  of  the  other 
professions  are.  He  must  conform 
theologically,  politically  and  socially 
to  the  conventional  standards  of  the 
churches,  forfeiting  his  freedom  if 
he  does  not  happen  naturally  to  con- 
form to  such  standards. 

The  man  of  Nazareth  is  perhaps  the 
only  minister  in  the  real  sense  who 
was  free,  and  he  had  no  church. 

Still  another  feature  of  the  clerical 
profession  which  is  not  revealed  to 
the  outside  world  is  the  pettiness, — the 
littlenesses  of  life,  of  which  the  minis- 
ter is  the  victim,  and  the  consequent 
view  he  gets  of  the  smaller  and 
meaner  things  of  human  nature,  as  in 
other  instances  he  obtains  glimpses  of 
the  finer  and  nobler  qualities  of  it. 
Upon  the  members  of  no  other  pro- 
fession  is   there   bestowed    so   much 


scrutiny,  cheap  comment,  and  petty 
criticism  as  upon  the  active  clergy- 
man. The  men  and  women  of  no 
other  profession  are  made  the  re- 
ceivers of  so  many  privacies,  burdens, 
complaints  and  personal  troubles  and 
affairs  from  all  sorts  and  conditions 
of  people  as  the  minister. 

But  if  he  takes  sides  he  is  in 
trouble,  makes  enemies,  and  begins  a 
disruption  in  his  church.  He  must 
he  all  things  to  all  men  and  carry 
round  with  him  the  wearisome  and 
unpleasant  burden  of  people's  feel- 
ings toward  each  other.  He  sees 
society,  church,  life,  human  nature, 
the  opinions  and  feelings  of  people 
toward  each  other  as  no  other  person 
sees  it — at  least  in  a  greater  degree 
than  any  other  person  sees  it.  As  a 
result  he  comes  to  realize  how  much 
of  professed  religion  and  the  graces 
of  Christian  fraternity  and  affection 
and  courtesy  are  superficial,  artificial, 
and  mere  varnish  or  veneer,  while 
his  work  becomes  more  a  manage- 
ment and  manipulation  of  fornis  and 
ceremonies  than  an  inspiration  and 
help  to  a  better  life. 

Of  course  there  is  another  side  to 
this,  but  this  is  one  side,  and  it  is  the 
side  the  world  does  not  see  or  know. 
Not  even  the  people  themselves  see 
each  other  as  the  minister  sees  them 
all,  and  the  kind  of  spirit  they  mani- 
fest, the  kind  of  life  they  live. 

This  in  itself  is  not  a  pleasant  fea- 
ture of  the  calling,  and  when  there  is 
added  the  incessant  watchfulness  and 
petty  criticism  that  is  forever  visited 
upon  him,  the  minister's  position  is 
far  from  a  lovely  dream,  far  from 
what  it  seems  to  the  onlooking  pub- 
lic. The  clergyman  and  his  family 
is  the  perennial  subject  of  discussion 


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at  the  church  whist  clubs,  aid  society 
meetings  and  other  small  gatherings 
of  his  church  people,  and  often,  of  the 
community.  From  the  crown  of  his 
head  to  the  sole  of  his  shoes  he  is 
the  subject  of  comment,  both  favor- 
able and  unfavorable,  and  is  the 
reservoir  into  which  people  pour  un- 
ceasingly their  private  opinions  and 
troubles,  their  likes  and  dislikes  of 
their  fellows,  and  other  things  in 
general.  No  other  profession  is  so 
complicated,  delicate  and  precarious. 
In  no  other  calling  is  the  injunction, 
"Be  ye  wise  as  serpents  and  harmless 
as  doves/*  so  completely  applicable 
and  essential. 

There  is  yet  one  more  delusion  of 
the  calling  which  the  world  holds. 
It  is  in  the  matter  of  what  is  called 
pastoral  visiting.  This  has  the  ap- 
pearance to  the  public  of  being  an 
easy  and  delightful  pastime,  whereas, 
to  an  earnest,  practical  and  virile 
minister  it  is  a  hard  task,  and  one  that 
often  seems  perfunctory  and  puerile. 
It  seems  to  him  often,  and  in  reality 
doubtless  often  is,  a  sort  of  fiddling 
away  his  time  and  talents  instead  of 
being  vital  and  valuable  work.  It  is 
true  that  much  good  comes  from  pas- 
toral visiting,  and  that  it  is  pleasant, 
in  some  instances,  but  much  of  it,  in 
the  average  parish,  is  aimless  and 
vapid,  a  mere  form  on  the  part  of  the 
ones  visited  and  a  corresponding  trial 
to  the  one  visiting.  Yet  it  is  the  one 
thing  in  the  minister's  profession 
which,  if  neglected,  is  first  to  cause 
trouble. 

In  addition  to  all  these  there  is  the 
parsonage  habit  and  the  candidating 
system  which  are  characteristic  of  the 
profession,  each  of  which  has  its  un- 
pleasant features  not  recognized  by 


the  world.  The  having  of  a  house 
provided  free  of  rent  seems  to  the 
outsider  like  an  unmixed  blessing, 
but  it  is  not.  It  takes  away  a  man's 
independence  and  liberty  in  the  mat- 
ter of  his  residence,  giving  him  no 
opportunity  to  have  one  of  his  own 
such  as  he  would  like,  making  him 
seem  like  a  creature  dependent  upon 
society  for  his  home.  And  more- 
over, the  amount  deducted  from  the 
minister's  salary  where  there  is  a  par- 
sonage is  often  more  than  enough  to 
provide  himself  with  a  home  more 
suitable  to  his  needs  and  tastes. 
Furthermore,  the  average  parsonage 
is  not  kept  in  repair,  made  handy, 
neat  and  comfortable,  as  are  most 
other  dwellings,  because  the  interest 
of  the  church  in  it  is  indifl'erent  or  its 
management  neglectful,  or  the  church 
without  funds  for  the  purpose. 

Of  the  candidating  system  it  need 
only  be  said  that  it  is  the  most  unsat- 
isfactory as  well  as  the  most  trying 
experience  to  the  members  of  the 
calling,  subjecting  them  to  the  most 
trivial,  technical  and  personal  critical 
judgment,  and  often  deciding  their 
fate  upon  the  merest  superficial  cir- 
cumstance. Every  minister  who  has 
had  this  experience  will  appreciate 
the  utterance  of  Mr.  Spurgeon  on 
this  point.  The  qualifications  speci- 
fied by  a  certain  church  for  its  minis- 
ter were  such  that  Mr.  Spurgeon 
recommended  the  corresponding  dea- 
con to  take  a  large  sheet  of  brown 
paper  and  cut  out  a  minister  of  the 
size  and  shape  desired.  In  another 
instance  the  salary  oflFered  by  a 
church  was  so  very  small  that  Mr. 
Spurgeon  wrote  to  the  trustees: 
"Tlie  only  individual  I  know  who 
could  exist  on  such  a  stipend  is  the 


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SOME  SIDE   LIGHTS 


Angel  Gabriel.  He  would  need 
neither  cash  nor  clothes;  and  he 
would  come  down  from  heaven  every 
Sunday  morning,  and  go  back  at 
night.  So  I  advise  you  to  invite 
him." 

These  are  glimpses  of  the  profes- 
sion behind  the  scenes,  revealing 
some  of  its  phases  which  the  public, 
looking  upon  the  front  of  the  stage, 
does  not  see  and  does  not  know. 
The  clerical  profession  is  in  its  nature 
and  aim  among  the  noblest  that 
men  follow,  and  one  of  the  high- 
est in  its  opportunities.  There  are 
some  features  of  it  that  are  al- 
most beautiful  and  blessed,  and  it 
carries  with  it  some  of  the  highest 
rewards  and  the  deepest  satisfaction 
of  service  which  men  can  know;  but 
that  it  is  a  calling  free  from  its  trials, 
unpleasant  features,  ethical  defects, 
moral  problems,  and  travail  of  mind 
and  body,  is  far  from  true. 

To  the  sleek  and  well-fed  and  so- 
cially popular  and  petted  priests  and 
bishops  and  Doctors  of  Divinity  who 
preach  creed  more  than  practical 
righteousness,  and  divorce  religion 
from  life,  it  may  be  a  calling  of  un- 
mixed satisfaction  and  unequalled  de- 
light, but  to  tlie  plain,  intensely  hu- 
man, and  consecrated  minister  of  the 
real  gospel  in  this  age  it  is  a  calling 
and  a  work  that  carries  with  it 
trials  of  spirit  and  privations  of 
hiody;  that  reveals  some  unlovely  as- 
pects of  humanity,  and  yields  many 
painful  and  humiliating  experiences. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  a  profession 
over  which  a  man  may  well  ponder 
before  entering  it  and  make  up  his 
mind   that   the   glamour    which    sur- 


rounds it  in  the  public  mind  is  a 
delusion,  and  hides  much  of  the  plain 
and  prosaic  reality  of  the  calling. 
There  is  probably  no  other  profession 
that  is  so  theoretically  honored  and  so 
practically  ignored  as  the  clerical,  no 
other  class  of  men  that  are  so  highly 
regarded  to  their  face  and  in  their  pul- 
pit and  so  little  regarded  behind  their 
back  and  in  the  affairs  of  life  as  the 
ministers,  or  more  truly,  perhaps,  the 
clergymen  of  the  Protestant  denomi- 
nations. 

Once  the  local  minister  was  the 
oracle,  the  authority,  the  leader  in  his 
community  in  the  intellectual,  educa- 
tional and  civic  as  well  as  religious 
affairs,  but  at  the  present  time,  out- 
side of  his  strictly  professional  field 
and  work  he  occupies  but  a  small 
place  in  the  community-life,  the  press, 
political  leaders,  the  increase  of  tech- 
nical and  general  education  and  the 
commercial  interests  and  materialis- 
tic spirit  of  the  age  having  gradually 
crowded  the  church  from  its  original 
vantage  ground  and  the  minister  out 
of  his  prominent  place  in  society. 

The  clerical  profession  to-day  as 
ever  touches  some  of  the  deepest, 
tenderest,  and  most  vital  and  respon- 
sive chords  of  human  life,  but  for  the 
man  who  would  be  practical,  virile 
and  progressive — a  real  minister,  not 
a  mere  clergyman — the  vocation,  his 
ministry,  is  epitomized  in  the  state- 
ment of  the  writer  of  The  Book  of 
Wisdom :  '*  My  son,  if  thou  come  to 
serve  the  Lord,  prepare  thy  soul  for 
trials."  For  he  will  feel  the  pincli  of 
life,  find  evil  sadly  mixed  with  good, 
and  always  delicate  and  difficult  ser- 
vice waiting  at  his  hand. 


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Men  and  Events  of  the  Day 


Madame  Blauvelf s  American  Tour 


GREAT  interest  will  attach 
to  Madame  Lillian  Blau- 
velt's  American  concert 
tour,  which  will  begin  the 
twentieth  of  this  month.  Since  the 
first  of  October  she  has  befen  singing 
in  Great  Britain,  where  last  spring 
she  made  her  London  operatic  debut 
as  Marguerite  in  "Faust,"  at  the 
Royal  Covent  Garden. 

Madame  Blauvelt  was  born  in 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.,  on  March  i6,  1873. 
She  comes  of  good  family,  her 
parents  being  of  ancient  Welsh  and 
Dutch  stock  respectively,  and  trac- 
ing their  ancestry  to  the  very 
first  settlers  of  Manhattan  Island. 
It  is  perhaps  to  this  interesting 
and  unusual  race  combination  that 
the  singer  owes  her  peculiarly 
fascinating  and  magnetic  personal- 
ity. 

Madame  Blauvelt's  musical  abil- 
ity showed  itself  early.  Until  her 
fifteenth  year  she  devoted  herself 
exclusively  to  the  violin,  acquiring 
quite  a  reputation  as  a  child  per- 
former ;  then,  finding  that  she  had  a 
voice  of  remarkable  quality,  she 
turned  her  attention  to  singing. 
She  commenced  her  vocal  education 


under  M.  Jacques  Bouhy  in  New 
York,  and  when  he  returned  to 
Paris  she  followed  him  to  complete 
her  training  there. 

From  the  very  first,  she  has  met 
with  great  success  on  the  Continent 
and  in  England,  her  operatic  perform- 
ances at  the  Theatre  de  la  Monnaie 
in  Brussels  being]  especially  note- 
worthy as  having  elicited  enthusi- 
astic comment.  She  has  sung  with 
all  the  leading  musical  societies  of 
Europe,  and  under  the  direction  of 
such  famous  conductors  as  Nikisch, 
Richter,  Weingartner  and  Lamou- 
reux,  and  has  won  distinguished  rec- 
ognition from  Queen  Margherita  of 
Italy  and  from  Queen  Victoria.  She 
has  also  received  the  Decoration  of 
the  Order  of  St.  Cecilia,  conferred  by 
the  Royal  Academy  of  St.  Cecilia,  the 
oldest  musical  society  in  the  world, 
founded  in  1585.  Only  eight  people 
in  the  history  of  the  academy  have 
been  awarded  this  decoration,  and  of 
these  Madame  Blauvelt  is  the  only 
English-speaking  person  and  the 
only  woman. 

In  February,  1899,  Madame  Blau- 
velt was  married  to  William  F.  Pen- 
dleton, an  American. 


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528  Mme.  Blauvelt  as  "Juliette'* 

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Victor  Mapes 


A  Young  American  Playwright 


Victor  Mapes,  the  author  of  the 
successful  play,  "Captain  Barring- 
ton,"  in  which  Charles  Richman 
made  his  stellar  debut,  is  only 
thirty-three  years  old,  yet  he  has 
had  an  interesting  and  unusual 
career.  He  was  born  in  New 
York  City,  of  old  and  distinguished 
ancestry,  and  is  a  nephew  of  Mrs. 


Mary  Mapes  Dodge,  editor  of  the 
5*/.  Nicholas  Magazine.  He  was  grad- 
uated from  Columbia  University  in 
1 89 1,  after  which  he  spent  a  year  as 
reporter  on  the  New  York  Sun.  But 
being  ambitious  to  become  a  play- 
wright, he  went  to  Paris  as  the  best 
place  to  study  the  methods  of  the  mas- 
ter hands  at  play  writing  and  play  pro- 


529 


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530 


MEN    AND    EVENTS 


ducing.  He  has  the  distinction  of 
being  the  only  American  who  ever 
wrote  a  play  in  the  French  language 
and  had  it  produced  at  a  French 
theatre  in  Paris.  This  was  a  three- 
act  modern  comedy-drama  called  "La 
Comtesse  de  Lisne."  Returning  to 
New  York,  Mr.  Mapes  became  stage- 
manager  at  the  Lyceum  Theatre, 
which  position  he  held  for  a  year. 
He  has  written  several  plays  which 
have  been  successfully  produced  in 
America,  the  most  important,  perhaps, 


being  "Don  Caesar's  Return,"  which 
was  produced  by  James  K.  Hackett 
in  1901.  Mr.  Mapes  has  also  acted 
as  dramatic  critic  of  the  New  York 
Sun,  signing  his  criticisms  with 
the  pen  name  of  "Sidney  Sharp," 
and  has  written  articles  and  short 
stories  for  various  magazines.  He 
is  now  resident  manager  of  the 
new  Globe  Theatre  in  Boston, 
where  his  play,  "Captain  Barring- 
ton,"  has  filled  a  protracted  en- 
gagement. 


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Reigns  in  the  Home 
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IN 


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Insurance  Company  of  America 


JohnF.Dryden. 

President. 


Withoat  committing  myutfto  any  action,  I  shall  bt  glad  to  rtetive,  tree, 
fiorticulan  and  ratn  offfolteiet  for  f 


eiI&2VI>  'THIS  COUF»OJN.    dw    14 


Home  Office: 
NEWARK,  N  J. 
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Sun-Dial   at  Ivy  Lodge,  Germantown,  Penn.,   Residence  of 
Horace  J.  Smith,  Esq. 

See  page  566 


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New  England M\gazine 


New  Series 


JANUARY,  1904 


VOL.  XXIX  NO.  5 


Christmas  at  Cape  Sabine 

By  Lieut.  R.  E.  Peary 


IN  the  entire  list  of  Arctic  locali- 
ties there  is  probably  no  name 
which  for  Americans  is  more  as- 
sociated with  gruesome  recollec- 
tions than  Cape  Sabine,  the  barren 
point  of  rocks  which  defines  on  the 
west  the  northern  end  and  narrowest 
point  of  Smith  Sound. 

Bleak  and  sombre,  wind-swept  and 
ice-battered,  its  atmosphere  heavy 
with  human  pain,  despair,  contention, 
and  death,  when  not  bound  in  the  iron 
fetters  of  the  ice,  it  is  resisting  the 
incessant  shocks  of  the  constantly 
southward-surging  pack. 

Starv^ation  Cove,  where  the  last  of 
Franklin's  men  met  their  end,  fills  a 
similar  place  with  Englishmen. 

But  in  another  respect  the  two  lo- 
calities are   entirely   dissimilar. 

The  horrors  of  the  latter,  hidden 
from  the  world  for  years  behind  the 
inscrutable  uncertainty  of  the  Arctic 
wastes,  resulted  in  the  period  of  great- 
est activity  known  in  the  history  of 
Arctic  exploration. 

Ship  after  ship  and  expedition  after 
expedition  were  sent  out  to  solve  the 


mystery  of  the  disappearance  of 
Franklin  and  his  men,  until  at  one 
time  some  ten  or  twelve  ships  were 
simultaneously  engaged  in  the  work, 
and  more  of  the  North  Ameri- 
can archipelago  was  discovered  and 
charted  than  had  ever  been  done  be- 
fore or  has  been  done  since. 

The  horrors  of  the  former,  known 
almost  immediately,  put  a  complete 
damper  on  government  interest  in  and 
assistance  to  Arctic  work  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic;  and  its  influence  is 
felt  even  to-day,  after  a  lapse  of  many 
years. 

About  two  miles  south  of  the  point 
of  Cape  Sabine  a  group  of  rocky 
islands  forms  a  small  bight,  discov- 
ered by  the  English  expedition  of 
1876,  and  named  by  them  Payer  Har- 
bor. Brought  into  prominence  a  few 
years  later  from  being  the  shelter 
from  which  the  Proteus  started  out  to 
her  destruction,  it  has  since  been  a 
familiar  name  to  Arctic  students. 

Here  my  ship,  the  Windward,  was 
caught  by  the  ice  in  September,  1900, 
and  compelled  to  winter,  with  Mrs. 

533 

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Windward  in  Winter  Quarters 


Peary  on  board,  I  being  north  at  Fort 
Conger  at  the  time.  Here  I  joined 
her  on  May  6,  1901 ;  and  here  I  deter- 
mined to  establish  my  winter  quar- 
ters for  the  coming  season,  the  local- 
ity being  the  southern  key  to  the 
Smith  Sound  Hne  of  approach  to  the 
pole.  In  pursuance  of  this  purpose 
the  Windward's  deckhouse  was  un- 
shipped, hauled  over  the  harbor  ice, 
and  set  up  in  a  favorable  location 
overlooking  the  harbor.  All  stores 
and  equipment  which  could  be  spared 
from  the  summer  walrus-hunting 
were  landed  and  secured. 

Late  in  August  both  my  ships,  the 
Windward  and  the  Eric,  steamed  away 
for  home,  leaving  me  and  my  party 
just  below  Eric  Head,  on  the  Elles- 
mere  Land  coast,  some  twelve  to  fif- 
teen miles  south  of  Payer  Harbor. 
534 


Not  until  September  17  did  the  ce- 
menting of  the  inshore  ice  permit  us 
to  reach  Payer  Harbor,  and  scarcely 
were  we  settled  down  when  the  Angel 
of  Death  came  amongst  us,  and  re- 
mained for  nearly  three  months. 

December  of  1901  found  me  with 
my  faithful  Esquimaux  decimated  by 
the  ravages  of  a  fatal  disease,  and  my 
party  slowly  recovering  from  our  pas- 
sage through  the  '*Valley  of  the 
Shadow  of  Death."  Naturally  our 
Christmas  was  not  a  specially  hilari- 
ous one.  My  party  at  this  time  com- 
prised my  colored  man  Henson,  or 
Matt,  as  he  was  generally  known; 
Charlie,  my  cook,  a  fine,  big  speci- 
men of  the  Newfoundland  fisherman; 
and  the  following  Esquimaux:  Ahn- 
goodloo  and  his  wife  Ekaresah; 
Ahngmaloktok   and   his   wife   lonah; 


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CHRISTMAS    AT    CAPE   SABINE 


535 


Ahngodoblaho,  his  wife  Siutikahtui, 
and  two  children ;  Ahahgiahsu,  an  old 
deaf  mute,  and  her  daughter  Ahmemi, 
and  two  orphan  boys,  Koodlooktoo 
and  Arkao. 

Henson  and  Charlie  were  quartered 
with  me  in  the  deckhouse,  which  I 
had  landed  from  the  Windward.  This 
contained  a  small  sleeping  room  for 
each  of  us,  a  kitchen,  and  a  dining 
room.  The  Esquimaux  were  quar- 
tered in  "Fort  Magnesia,^'  the  old 
Stein  headquarters.  Both  habitations 
were  walled  in  completely  with  snow 
blocks,  and  the  entrances  still  further 
protected  by  snow  vestibules.  Only 
by  such  means  can  comfort  be  secured 
in  the  vicinity  of  Sabine,  which  is  a 
region  of  strong  and  incessant  winds 
summer  and  winter. 

The  sun  had  long  since  left  us,  and 
we  were  shrouded  in  continual  dark- 
ness. The  ice,  which  all  through  the 
preceding  months  had  been  surging 
slowly  past  us,  was  now  at  rest,  fet- 
tered by  the  intense  cold. 

The  extremity  of  Cape  Sabine,  the 
northern  end  of  Brevoort  Island,  and 
the  northern  side  of  every  projecting 
point,  were  piled  high  with  ice  masses 
torn  from  the  floes  as  they  passed. 

East  and  southeast  lay  the  still  un- 
frozen expanse  of  the  north  water,  its 
inky  waves  supporting  a  stratum  of 
air  heavy  with  condensing  vapors, 
which  at  any  breath  of  wind  settled 
in  upon  us  in  a  freezing  pall  of  more 
than  Stygian  darkness,  through  which 
slowly  filtered  minute  spiculae  of  ice. 

Five  days  before  Christmas  Matt 
and  the  three  Esquimaux  men  had 
started  for  the  head  of  Buchanan 
Bay,  fifty  miles  distant,  to  bring  out 
the  meat  of  some  musk  oxen  killed 


there  in  October,  and  which  the  illness 
of  my  entire  party  had  made  it  impos- 
sible to  bring  out  before. 

I  wanted,  and  at  first  intended,  to 
make  this  trip  myself.  I  was  anxious 
to  get  out  and  away  for  a  breathing 
spell  from  the  place  where  the  illness 
and  death  of  my  devoted  people  had 
held  me  prisoner  for  so  long.  I  felt 
that  I  needed  the  change  and  separa- 
tion from  the  saddening  associations. 
But  after  thinking  the  matter  over 
carefully,  I  felt  that  the  uncertainty  of 
finding  the  meat  cache  in  the  darkness 
of  the  Arctic  night,  and  after  the 
snows  of  two  months,  simply  from  de- 
scription, was  too  great  an  uncer- 
tainty for  me  to  risk. 

Three  days  before  Christmas  oc- 
curred the  winter  solstice,  and  it  was 
a  cheering  thought  in  the  darkness 
which  shrouded  everything  to  know 
that  the  sun  had  reached  the  limit  of 
his  southern  swing,  and,  though  he 
wouy  still  be  invisible  for  weeks  to 
come,  was  slowly  returning  to  us. 
Jackson  in  Franz  Joseph  Land  com- 
plained of  sleeplessness  during  the 
long  winter  night,  increasing  with 
each  successive  winter.  I  did  not  ex- 
perience his  trouble,  although  this 
was  my  fourth  successive  winter.  But 
I  did  have  great  difficulty  in  sleeping 
at  the  right  time.  I  was  always  wide 
awake  during  the  greater  portion  of 
the  night,  and  then  dead  sleepy  at 
breakfast  time. 

The  day  before  Christmas  was 
cloudy,  with  a  strong  northerly  wind, 
increasing  in  the  afternoon  to  a  wild 
gale  with  suffocating  drift.  Evidently 
there  was  open  water  close  off  Bre- 
voort Island,  though  there  was  not 
enough  light  to  allow  it  to  be  seen. 


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536 


CHRISTMAS    AT   CAPE   SABINE 


In  the  evening  I  opened  a  box  of 
candy,  fruit,  etc.,  from  home.  Charlie 
was  busy  cooking  and  cleaning  house 
for  Christmas,  and  I  passed  the  hours 
dreaming  of  the  far-distant  faces, 
knowing  there  were  many  loving  and 
anxious  thoughts  for  me  at  home 
even  though  one  tender,  fond  heart 
was  still  forever. 

Christmas  Day  came  even  thicker 
and  darker  than  the  day  before,  with 
the  wind  swung  round  into  the  south, 
and  howling  viciously  over  the  rocks 
and  across  the  ragged  ice  which  filled 
the  harbor. 

In  the  absence  of  the  men,  the  feed- 
ing of  the  dogs  left  behind  devolved 
on  me,  and  under  the  conditions  of 
darkness  and  wind  was  a  matter  of 
considerable  time  and  some  difficulty. 
These  faithful  animals  were  fastened 
in  knots  of  five  and  eight,  wherever 
the  buildings  or  the  rocks  aflForded  a 
lee  from  the  biting  wind.  Some  forty 
in  all,  the  work  of  feeding  was  by  no 
means  a  matter  of  a  few  minutes. 
They  knew  as  well  as  I  that  this  was 
feeding  time,  and  ever  since  Charlie 
started  the  fire  for  breakfast,  and  the 
wind  had  carried  the  coal  scent  broad- 
cast, they  had  been  on  the  qui  vive, 
even  the  apparently  sleeping  ones 
having  one  ear  wide  open;  and  as  I 
came  out  clad  in  my  worst  clothes, 
with  old  gloves  kept  for  the  purpose, 
and,  hatchet  in  hand,  walked  towards 
the  pile  of  frozen  walrus  meat,  which 
was  kept  replenished  from  my  big 
caches  across  the  harbor  and  on  Bre- 
voort  Island,  every  dog  was  on  his 
feet. 

When,  having  pulled  a  big  frozen 
flipper  from  the  pile,  I  began  drag- 
ging  it   towards   the    nearest   group, 


the  neglected  ones  broke  into  a  wild 
chorus  of  barks,  howls  and  screams, 
interspersed  with  snarls  and  cries  of 
pain  as  vicious  but  short-lived  bat- 
tles showed  that  irritated  impatience 
could  hold  out  no  longer. 

Every  dog  in  the  team  which  I  was 
approaching  was  straining  forward  to 
the  utmost  limit  of  his  trace,  his  eyes, 
which  shone  in  the  darkness,  fixed  on 
the  walrus  meat,  his  whole  body  quiv- 
ering; and  the  barks  and  howls  had 
given  way  to  low  whines,  coughs,  and 
the  chattering  of  teeth  in  eager  antici- 
pation. 

Kneeling  or  stooping  as  the  ground 
required,  just  in  front  of  the  dogs, 
with  back  to  the  wind,  the  frozen  meat 
was  chopped  off  in  big  chunks,  until 
at  last  each  dog,  with  a  long-drawn 
sigh  of  satisfaction,  refused  any  more, 
and  I  turned  to  the  next  team. 
Though  all  were  thoroughly  fed,  of 
course,  I  had  my  favorites.  These 
were  the  ten  beautiful  grays  forming 
my  own  team,  fastened  in  two  lots  of 
five  each  in  the  lee  of  one  of  the  build- 
ings. With  their  long  legs,  bushy 
tails,  and  pointed  ears  and  noses,  they 
looked  like  a  pack  of  timber  wolves. 
But  the  affectionate  dog  nature 
showed  out  as  I  approached  in  low 
"woofs,"  the  lifting  of  a  paw  as  if  to 
shake  hands,  the  standing  upright  to 
stretch  out  both  paws  toward  me, 
and  numerous  other  little  canine  ex- 
pressions of  welcome. 

Better  trained  than  some  of  the 
others,  there  was  no  fighting,  each 
one  knowing  that  he  would  get  his 
full  share,  and  standing  alert  like  a 
veteran  first  baseman  to  catch  each 
piece  that  came  his  way. 

After  the  meal  was  over   I  busied 


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Esquimaux  Members  of  Lieut.-Commander  Peary's  Expedition 


myself  with  untangling  the  traces,  and 
there  were  rubbings  against  my  legs, 
playful  seizings  of  my  hands,  and 
contented  growls. 

Then  there  was  **Miss  Whiteface," 
born  under  the  house  at  Fort  Conger 
two  years  before,  now  with  five  beau- 
tiful gray  pups  of  her  own,  comfort- 
ably located  on  a  bed  of  grass  in  a 
little  snow  house;  and  "Sin,"  Marie's 
red  dog,  which,  though  an  abomina- 
tion from  her  color,  was  treated  with 
every  consideration  for  her  little  mis- 
tress's sake.  She,  too,  with  her  four 
coal-black  pups,  had  a  bed  and  a  house 
of  her  own. 

When  at  last  the  work  was  com- 
pleted, it  was  with  a  feeling  of  thank- 
fulness that  my  meat  supply  was 
ample  to  enable  me  to  feed  my  faith- 
ful assistants  full  rations;  and  I  en- 
tered the  house  with  a  glow  of  satis- 


faction that,  with  their  stomachs  filled 
to  repletion  with  the  rich,  heat-giving 
walrus  meat,  they  were  all  curled  up 
among  the  rocks,  warm  and  comfort- 
able within  their  furry  coats. 

Dinner,  the  chief  features  of  which 
were  a  fine  musk-ox  steak  and  a  plum 
duflf,  was  a  triumph  of  Qiarlie's  skill. 
His  success  in  this,  a  present  of  a  gen- 
erous box  of  candy,  and  the  fact  that 
his  foot,  which  he  had  scalded  se- 
verely the  first  day  of  the  month,  was 
now  completely  healed,  made  the  day 
much  more  than  a  mere  name  to  him. 

Hours  later,  after  Charlie  and  the 
Esquimaux  had  gone  to  bed,  we  had 
our  Christmas — I  and  my  pictures  of 
the  home  folk — with  a  cake,  a  small 
bottle  of  Moselle  and  a  cup  of  coffee 
before  us. 

We  looked  into  each  other's  eyes, 
dreamed  of  the  past,  each  drop  of  the 

537 

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•  Esquimaux  Dog  Team 


favorite  wine  a  vignette  and  a  remi- 
niscence of  some  bygone  pleasant  ex- 
perience; speculated  as  to  the  future, 
and  what  another  Christmas  would 
bring,  till  the  fire  went  out,  and  I 
turned  to  my  narrow  bunk,  where  the 
roar  of  the  gale  lulled  me  to  sleep, 
and  I  followed  in  dreams  my  waking 
thoughts. 

Matt  and  his  party  returned  three 
days  later.  They  had  groped  their 
way  to  the  head  of  the  bay  through 
the  darkness  and  deep  snow,  only  to 
find  that  the  greater  portion  of  the 
meat  cached  in  October  had  been 
eaten  by  the  numerous  and  ravenous 
foxes. 

Fortunately,  on  Christmas  Day, 
they  came  upon  and  killed  two  musk 
oxen.     They  were  going   from  their 


camp  to  the  meat  cache,  when,  not  far 
away,  the  rush  and  clatter  of  hoofs  in 
the  snow  and  over  the  rocks  were 
heard.  Several  of  the  best  dogs  w^ere 
quickly  cut  loose,  and,  the  natives  fol- 
lowing, with  senses  scarcely  less 
acute  than  those  of  the  dogs,  the  ani- 
mals were  run  down  and  brought  to  a 
stand  up  the  slope  of  the  cliffs,  and 
shot  with  the  muzzle  of  the  carbines 
almost  touching  them  in  the  darkness. 
What  with  the  success  and  excite- 
ment of  the  hunt,  abundance  of  fresh 
meat  and  a  small  flask  of  our  precious 
brandy,  which  I  had  packed  for  them 
when  they  left,  these  members  of  my 
party  passed  Christmas  night  by  no 
means  unpleasantly  in  a  comfortable 
snow  ingloo  in  the  heart  of  Ellesmere 
Land. 


538 


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Lion  of  July 


The  Remarkable  Barye  Bronzes 

With  Photographs  of  the  famous  Figures  in  the  Corcoran 

Gallery  of  Art 

By  Randolph  I.  Geare 


IN  European  countries,  and  in 
England,  the  art  of  working 
in  bronze  in  the  early  years 
slowly  advanced,  but  in  1257 
there  are  found  records  of  statuettes 
in  bronze  by  one  Simon,  of  Wells, 
and  by  William,  of  Gloucester.  A 
few  years  later  a  bronze  statue  of 
Henry  III  was  ordered,  while  at  the 
end  of  the  fourteenth  century  we  find 
the  names  of  Nicholas  Broker  and 
Godfrey  Priest,  who  erected  bronze 
statues  of  Richard  II  and  of 
Anne  of  Bohemia  in  Westminster 
Abbey. 

In  Italy  there  was  the  great 
Michael  Angelo,  who,  it  may  not 
perhaps  be  generally  known,  was  a 
bronze  founder,  and  letters  of  his 
have   been    found    wherein    he    com- 


plains bitterly  of  his  lack  of  success 
in  at  least  one  of  his  efforts,  namely, 
in  casting  a  statue  of  Pope  Julius  at 
Boulogne.  Others  famous  in  Italy 
were  Torregiano  and  Rovezzano. 

Paris  had  not  yet  become  noted  for 
its  bronzes,  but  in  1540  Cellini  went 
there  from  Italy  and  spent  five  years, 
during  which  he  executed  several 
important  works  both  in  bronze  and 
silver. 

The  erection  of  equestrian  statues 
in  bronze  was  now  coming  into 
fashion,  and  about  1604  one  of 
Henri  IV  was  made  at  Florence  and 
transported  to  Paris,  where  it  was  set 
up  on  the  Pont  Neuf  in  1616.  An- 
other, of  Louis  XIII,  was  erected  in 
the  Place  Royal  in  1639.  ^^  excel- 
lent statue  of  Louis  XIV  was  made 


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o 
o 
a: 


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THE  REMARKABLE  BARYE  BRONZES 


541 


in  France  by  Girardon,  and  cast  in 
bronze  by  Keller  in  1699. 

All  of  these  artists,  however,  were 
destined  to  be  eclipsed  by  the  man 
whose  work  forms  the  subject  of  this 
article — the  celebrated  Barye.  His 
was  not  an  ephemeral  success,  nor 
indeed,  speaking  generally,  did  his 
surpassing  skill  at  first  receive  full 
recognition.  True,  his  genius  was  in- 
stantly appreciated  by  a  few,  and  yet 


Louis  Boulanger,  Paul  Huet,  Maril- 
hat,  Eugene  Delacroix  and  Theodore 
Rousseau.  But  this  fact  afforded 
very  little  solace  to  Barye,  who  with- 
drew from  public  gaze  for  the  follow- 
ing thirteen  years.  And  incidentally 
it  may  be  added  that  his  genius  was 
earlier  and  more  generally  recognized 
here  in  America  than  at  home.  The 
private  collection  of  Mr.  Walters  in 
Baltimore     includes     an     unrivalled 


Jaguar  and  Hare 


his  five  famous  groups  of  small  size, 
representing  the  pursuit  of  big  game, 
and  ordered  by  the  Due  d'Orleans, 
were  actually  denied  a  place  in  the 
annual  exhibition  held  in  the  Louvre 
in  1837.  The  jury  which  excluded 
these  groups  was  none  other  than  the 
Academic  des  Beaux  Artes.  In  ex- 
tenuation of  their  action,  however,  it 
should  be  said  that  they  had  in  the 
previous  year  ostracized  such  men  as 


series  of  this  artist's  great  bronzes, 
which  have  been  dignified  in  being 
installed  by  themselves  in  what  is 
known  as  the  "Barye  Room."  There 
are  also  a  number  of  his  productions 
in  the  Corcoran  Art  Gallery  in  Wash- 
ington. 

Barye,  born  in  1796,  was  a  contem- 
porary  of   Gericault   and   Delacroix, 
the  great  forerunner  and  leader,  re- 
spectively,   of    the    Romantic    move- 
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Deer  Biting  its  Side 


ment  in  art.  He  was  a  pupil  of  the 
celebrated  sculptor,  Bosio,  and  of  the 
painter,  Gros,  but  at  an  early  stage  in 
his  professional  career  he  determined 
to  break  away  from  the  conventional, 
lifeless  style  hitherto  in  vogue,  and  to 
strive  for  something  more  realistic. 
This,  he  decided,  could  only  be  at- 
tained as  the  result  of  close,  scientific 
study.  He  therefore  spent  much  time 
in  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  where  he 
followed  the  movements  of  the  an- 
imals, and  where,  it  is  said,  he 
"watched,  studied  and  drew  his  be- 
loved beasts  when  living  with  the 
same  passionate  and  untiring  devo- 
tion as  he  gave  to  dissecting  and  an- 
atomizing them  when  dead." 

The  first  public  exhibition  of  his 
work  in  bronze  was  at  the  Salon  in 
1827,  when  he  was  thirty-one  years 
old,  but  he  had  four  years  to  wait  until 
he  reached  what  might  be  termed  the 
turning-point  in  his  career.  It  was  in 
542 


the  exhibition  in  183 1  when  he  showed 
his  "St.  Sebastien"  and  his  famous 
"Tiger  Devouring  a  Crocodile."  To 
the  present  generation  the  bold  and 
vigorous  style  of  this  piece  seems  nat- 
ural enough,  but  to  the  critics  of  his 
day  it  seemed  singularly  audacious, 
in  that  it  was  a  radical  departure 
from  the  classical  models  of  the  con- 
ventional type,  to  which  the  world  had 
until  then  been  accustomed.  And 
again,  two  years  later,  he  even  more 
'definitely  affirmed  his  position,  when 
in  1833  he  exhibited  his  bronze  rep- 
resenting a  lion  crushing  a  serpent, 
which  now  adorns  the  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries.  In  this  piece  he  boldly 
ignored  the  hitherto  typical  and 
somewhat  human-like  aspect  which 
had  been  commonly  given  to  the  lion 
by  artists  of  the  conventional  school. 
Seven  years  later  he  exhibited  his 
famous  "Lion  of  the  Bastille 
Column,"  which  was  treated  in  a  still 


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broader  spirit  and  with  a  truly  artistic 
generalization  of  detail. 

But  it  was  not  only  in  his  represen- 
tations of  wild  animals  that  Barye 
became  eminent,  for  he  also  proved 
himself  well  in  touch  with  the  Ro- 
mantic school  in  his  celebrated  eques- 
trian statuettes,  produced  at  this  and 
later  periods — such  as  the  one  of 
Charles  YI,  and  another  of 
Charles  VII,  which  latter  is  regarded 
as  remarkable  for  its  serene  beauty 
of  type.  In  these  he  exhibited  a  qual- 
ity of  dramatic  force  and  imagination 
which,  it  must  be  admitted,  in  his 
greater  efforts  seans  to  be  wanting. 
Soon  afterwards  his  fanciful  *'Roger 
et  Angelique  sur  THippogriffe"  ap- 
peared, and  although  from  a  strictly 
technical  point  of  view  it  was  criti- 
cised as  an  imperfectly  balanced 
group,  it  constituted  the  crowning 
adornment  of  an  order  which  he  exe- 
cuted   for   the   Due  de   Montpensier. 


And  yet  after  all  these  wonderful 
achievements,  he  was  barred,  as  al- 
ready stated,  from  exhibiting  at  the 
Louvre  in  1837!! 

After  his  voluntary  retirement,  his 
glorious  art  burst  forth  anew  and 
brought  him  triumphantly  to  the 
zenith  of  his  fame,  when  in  1850  he 
exhibited  his  '*j3igu2ir  Devouring  a 
Hare."  In  this  was  concentrated  in 
one  supreme  effort  all  his  strength  of 
style,  resulting  from  his  patient  ob- 
servation of  the  living  model.  "In  no 
other  instance,"  writes  his  biographer, 
"has  the  sinuous  grace  of  line,  the 
muscular  strength  and  the  ferocity  of 
the  feline  tribe,  been  so  presented  in 
art."  The  illustrations  accompanying 
this  article  include  a  representation  of 
this  subject  and  several  others  of  his 
best  pieces. 

In  a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  work  of 
this  great  sculptor,  it  is  impossible  to 
go  into  a  detailed  description  of  each 


Scottish  Hounds  and  Deer 


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Horse  and  Lion 


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Bear  and  Dogs 


of  his  pieces,  or  even  to  mention  the 
half  of  them,  but  a  passing  reference 
may  be  made  to  the  sense  of  cold 
cruelty  which  seems  to  have  char- 
acterized the  man's  art.  Some  of  his 
bronzes  have  been  known,  it  is  said^ 
to  strike  the  spectator  with  an  actual 
sense  of  physical  horror,  and  while 
there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he 
studiously  aimed  to  produce  this  par- 
ticular sensation,  it  cannot  be  doubted 
that  he  was  strongly  actuated  by  a  de- 
sire to  display  in  all  these  mortal 
combats  of  man  with  beasts  and  of 


one  beast  with  another,  the  majestic 
and  fearful  beauty  of  the  strength, 
ferocity  and  suppleness  of  his  figures. 
Nor  can  he  be  said  to  have  degraded 
his  art  in  any  degree  by  so  doing.  In- 
deed, it  has  been  asserted  that  no 
modern  sculptor  ever  approached 
more  nearly  to  the  true  Greek  ideal  in 
art  than  Barye  did — an  ideal,  the 
chief  attribute  of  which  was  a  strange 
impassiveness  and  almost  unvarying 
serenity,  preserved  even  in  represen- 
tations calling  for  the  most  violent 
kind  of  action. 


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Judge  Shute 


HENRY  A.  SHUTE,  author 
of  "The  Real  Diary  of  a 
Real  Boy,"  and  of  the  series 
of  clever  "Neighborhood 
Sketches/'  which  The  New  England 
Magazine  has  secured  for  publica- 
tion, was  born  at  Exeter,  New  Hamp- 
shire, November  17,  1856,  the  oldest 
son  of  George  Smith  and  Joanna 
(Simpkins)  Shute.  lie  obtained  his 
early  education  in  the  public  schools 
of  his  native  town,  and  entered  the 
Phillips  Exeter  Academy  in  Sep- 
tember, 1872.  He  pursued  the 
regular  classical  course  at  this  insti- 
tution and  was  graduated  with  the 
class  of  1875,  a  class  famous  for  the 
number  of  its  members  who  have 
since  won  distinction.  Among  his 
classmates  were  President  William 
DeWitt  Hyde,  of  Bowdoin  College, 
Harlan  Page  Amen,  the  present  popu- 
lar and  efficient  head  of  Phillips  Exe- 
ter, Edmund  Lincoln  Baylies,  a 
leader  in  the  ultra-fashionable  society 
of  New  York  City,  and  Stewart  Shil- 
lito,  the  merchant  prince  of  Cincin- 
nati. 

Mr.  Shute  spent  four  years  at  Har- 
vard, being  graduated  in  June,  1879. 
While  in  college  he  paid  particular 
attention  to  the  modern  languages 
and  natural  history.  He  numbered 
among  his  electives  French,  German 
and  Italian,  besides  English.  His  stu- 
dent themes  and  forensics  showed 
abundant  proof  of  the  latent  genius 
so  fully  developed  in  his  later  works, 
**The  Real  Diary,"  and  "Neighbor- 
546 


hood  Sketches."  Even  then  his  power 
of  description  and  his  intuitive  analy- 
sis of  character  were  marked. 

He  was  not  so  much  absorbed  in 
his  studies,  however,  as  to  neglect  the 
proper  development  of  his  body,  and 
for  four  years  he  took  daily  exercise 
in  the  gymnasium.  Finally  this  be- 
came the  popular  resort  for  students 
each  afternoon  at  four  o'clock,  to  see 
Shute  "put  up"  the  one  hundred 
pound  dumb-bell.  In  his  junior  and 
senior  years  he  declined  a  number  of 
flattering  offers  from  the  captain  of 
the  "Varsity"  to  try  for  the  crew. 

Immediately  upon  his  graduation 
Shute  returned  to  his  native  town  and 
began  the  study  of  law  in  the  office  of 
Hon.  William  Wallace  Stickney.  In 
due  time  he  was  admitted  to  the  New 
Hampshire  bar,  and  March  i,  I883, 
was  appointed  by  the  governor  of  the 
state  justice  of  the  Exeter  police 
court,  a  position  he  still  retains.  For 
a  number  of  years  he  has  held  the  of- 
fice of  secretary  and  treasurer  of  the 
Rockingham  Farmers'  Mutual  Fire 
Insurance  Company.  He  has  given 
considerable  attention  to  probate  busi- 
ness, and  recently  when  the  office  of 
Judge  of  Probate  of  Rockingham 
County  was  vacant,  Judge  Shute  was 
prominently  mentioned  for  the  posi- 
tion. 

As  an  improriiptu  speaker  he  has 
few  superiors,  and  he  is  frequently 
called  upon  to  serve  as  toast  master. 
The  Judge  has  marked  ability  as  a 
musical     critic    and    is    an    efficient 


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NEIGHBORHOOD   SKETCHES 


547 


musician  himself.  While  his  favorite 
instrument  is  a  clarinet,  he  is  almost 
as  much  at  home  with  several  others. 
His  family  consists  of  a  wife,  an  ac- 
complished pianist  and  organist,  and 
two  children,  both  of  whom  have  in- 
herited their  parents'  fondness  for 
music,  and  promise  to  become  talented 


musicians.  He  is  passionately  fond 
of  horses,  and  nearly  every  day 
he  can  be  seen  in  the  streets  of 
Exeter  mounted  on  his  favorite 
steed. 

Lawyer,  musician,  author,  in  each 
calling  Judge  Shute  has  gained  suc- 
cess. 


Neighborhood  Sketches 


By  Henry  A.  Shute 


WE  have  recently  moved 
into  a  new  neighbor- 
hood. A  rather  swell 
neighborhood  as  it  ap- 
pears to  us,  who  have  always  lived 
within  arm's  length  of  stables, 
blacksmith's  shops,  hotels  and  cor- 
ner stores,  and  we  w^re  at  first 
naturally  a  little  timid  about  trust- 
ing ourselves  on  foreign  soil.  True, 
we  had  fished,  frogged,  swum  and 
picnicked  in  our  boyhood  through- 
out the  vcfry  neighborhood  that  we 
now  reluctantly  but  hopefully  were 
about  to  enter.  True,  also,  that  we 
had  a  bowing  acquaintance  with 
most  of  the  members  of  the  little 
community,  and  yet  we  feared  that 
in  some  respects  we  might  not  be  re- 
garded as  exactly  social  acquisi- 
tions by  our  prospective  neighbors. 
As  we  are  rather  a  sociable  chap 
ourself  we  should  not  have  thought 
of  it,  but  this  idea  was  quietly  but 
firmly  imparted  to  us  by  our  wife. 
We  were  told  that  a  residential 
quarter  of  the  town,  where  people 
of  education  and  family  standing 
lived,  was  different  in  many  ways 
from  a  neighborhood  of  noises  and 


smells  such  as  we  had  been  accus- 
tomed to.  We  were  told  that  our 
habit  of  going  about  in  corduroys 
and  riding  leathers  was  undignified; 
that  of  passing  Canadian  compli- 
ments over  the  back  fence  with  the 
French  blacksmith  was  contra 
bonos  mores,  and  that  in  other 
ways  our  manners  and  methods 
were  open  to  objection  by  edu- 
cated persons. 

PREPARATION. 

We  informed  her  that  we  were 
liberally  educated,  and  were  in- 
formed in  our  turn  that  while  the 
fact  was  in  a  certain  sense  true, 
that  few  if  any  indications  of  that 
fact  remained  in  evidence. 

And  so,  acting  under  the  uxorial 
spur,  we  honestly  tried  to  curb  our 
propensity  to  be  free  and  easy  with 
every  one;  to  cultivate  repose  of 
manner;  to  abstain  from  sitting 
with  our  feet  higher  than  our  head; 
to  refrain  from  a  propensity  to  joke, 
and  to  withhold  from  doing  other 
delightfully  natural  things.  In  a 
measure  we  were  successful.  For 
instance,  we  could  enter  and  leave 
a  room  fairly  well,  but  this  acquisi- 
tion cost  us,  in  addition  to  the  ex- 

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NEIGHBORHOOD   SKETCHES 


pense  of  the  'book  on  "Correct 
Form,"  about  ten  dollars  for  a  cut 
glass  dish,  the  only  one  we  pos- 
sessed, and  a  severe  fall,  caused  by 
inadvertently  backing  out  of  our 
room  in  time  to  meet  our  wife  with 
the  aforesaid  dish.  Our  explana- 
tions were  received  with  marked 
coldness. 

Well,  the  time  came  for  our  mi- 
gration and  with  the  assistance  of  two 
men  and  a  wheelbarrow  we  trans- 
ported our  lares  and  penates  to  our 
domicile  in  what  may  be  known  as 
the  Greek  Quarter.  We  are  de- 
lighted with  the  change.  In  place 
of  brick  and  mortar  walls  wef  are 
surrounded  by  fifty  acres  of  field, 
river,  swamp  and  woodland.  In 
place  of  zephyrs  from  the  stables, 
we  have  the  fog-laden  east  winds 
from  our  rugged  New  England 
coast,  which  in  winter  blow  directly 
through  our  modest  dwelling,  and 
cause  the  shuddering  quicksilver  of 
our  thermometer  to  retire  promptly 
out  of  sight  in  the  bottom  of  the 
tube.  We  have  exchanged  the  yells 
of  teamsters,  the  chatter  of  French 
visitors  at  the  blacksmith  shop,  the 
clang  of  the  anvil  and  the  squealing 
of  tortured  horses  for  the  merry 
voices  of  children  (about  thirty-six 
of  the  neighborhood  accumulation 
critically  superintending  the  disem- 
barkment  of  our  goods  from  the 
wheelbarrow)  during  the  day,  and 
a  sepulchral  quiet  at  night  that  is 
suggestive  of  ghosts  and  other  post 
mortem  characters. 

ORIENTIRUNG. 

We  admired  the  house  very  much, 
although,  having  been  from  our 
earliest  years  accustomed  to  straight 
stairs,  the  landings  bothered  us  a 


good  deal,  especially  in  the  dark, 
when  we  frequently  brought  up 
with  jokingly  irritating  violence 
against  stair  rails  or  corner  brack- 
ets that  appeared  to  exercise  both 
ingenuity  and  malevolence  in  reach- 
ing out  and  striking  us  in  unpro- 
tected  and  super-sensitive  places. 

It  was  some  time  before  we  and 
our  family  got  used  to  the  polished 
floor  of  the  dining  room,  any  un- 
guarded or  abrupt  entry  into  that 
room  being  followed  by  a  vibrant 
crash,  as  the  unfortunate  fell  to 
the  floor  with  violence. 

Knowing,  however,  that  the  path 
to  social  eminence  was  strewn  with 
obstacles  often  insurmountable,  we 
nursed  our  bruises,  studied  faith- 
fully our  book  on  "Correct  Form,"  put 
on  high  collars,  and  (when  we 
didn't  forget  it)  tried  hard  to  keep 
our  shoulders  back. 

The  neighborhood  is  clean,  quiet, 
and  much  more  than  "eminently  re- 
spectable," indeed,  remarkable  for 
dignity,  solidity  and  importance;  it 
is  more  than  that,  distinctively  lit- 
erary. 

There  is,  of  course,  the  member 
of  the  bar  bowed  bcfneath  the 
weight  of  learning,  the  clergyman 
and  author,  several  professors  con- 
nected with  the  leading  educational 
institutions  of  the  town,  active  and 
retired  business  men,  the  medical 
authority,  the  high  churchman, 
music  teachers,  instructors  in  art, 
in  short,  the  usual  assortment  of  a 
good  quarter  of  a  college  town. 

FASHION    PLATES. 

The  question  of  dress  has  been  a 
fruitful  subject  of  discussion  in  our 
family.  It  is  contended  by  our 
wife  that  we  do  not  dress  well.  This 


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is  true,  we  do  not.  As  a  boy  we 
were  clad  in  the  cast-off  garments 
of  our  elders,  made  over  by  an  old 
lady  whose  entire  outfit  consisted 
of  a  pair  of  shears,  a  darning  needle, 
some  yellow  wax  and  a  ball  of  pack 
thread,  and  whose  sole  idea  of  style 
and  fit  was  derived  from  the  baggy 
and  misshapen  garments  of  her 
helpmate,  a  bowed  and  snuffy  old 
gentlemen  of  eighty  years. 

As  a  youth  we  wcfre  so  rarely 
treated  to  a  new  suit,  that  an  event 
of  the  kind  was  openly  commented 
on  by  our  friends,  and  we  were  em- 
barrassed and  made  dreadfully  un- 
happy by  our  glaring  publicity. 
And  we  have  ncfver  got  over  this 
feeling.  We  admire  good  clothes, 
but  dread  wearing  them,  and  in  the 
rare  periods  in  our  life  that  are 
marked  by  the  advent  of  a  new  hat 
we  are  reduced  to  confusion  by  the 
mildest  comment  on  the  same. 

Now  the  corduroys  suited  us. 
They  were  warm  in  winter  and  cool 
in  summer,  they  were  smooth  and 
adaptable  to  every  movement;  they 
were  unol)trusive  and  homelike,  and 
it  was  in  bitterness  of  spirit  that  we 
laid  them  aside. 

Most  of  the  men  in  our  neighbor- 
hood dress  well.  On  Sundays  and 
festal  occasions  immaculate  Prince 
Alberts  and  silk  hats  are  by  no 
means  infrequent.  As  the  season 
grows  colder,  box  overcoats  of  the 
latest  style  in  fit  and  material  ap- 
pear, and  we  are  on  the  watch  for 
the  g^dual  invasion  of  spats.  As 
yet  nobody  has  appeared  in  them, 
but  we  still  look  for  them  confi- 
dently, and  even  go  so  far  as  to  hope 
that  we  may  not  go  through  life 
spatless  ourself. 


CLASSICS. 

Many  of  our  neighbors  have  been 
abroad,  and  their  knowledge  of  for- 
eign tongues  is  polyglot.  Both  the 
dead  and  living  languages  are  read 
and  spoken  fluently.  Greek,  Latin, 
Sanscrit,  Old  English,  Anglo-Sax- 
on, French,  German,  Spanish  and 
Italian  are  fluently  championed. 
Indeed,  some  of  our  neighbors  have 
written  books,  articles  both  scien- 
tific and  educational,  and  some  are 
even  now  engaged  in  well-defined 
efforts  to  revolutionize  educational 
methods  by  new  and  complete 
works  of  great  philological  value. 

And  so  in  the  midst  of  surround- 
ings of  so  bewildering  a  nature,  we 
are  slowly  becoming  acclimated, 
gradually  coming,  like  infants,  to 
feel  our  feet  and  to  walk  a  little. 
Of  some  of  our  successes  and  fail- 
ures we  will  later  speak  in  detail. 

II. 
A  FASHIONABLE   ROUT. 

We  had  been  in  our  new  neigh- 
borhood for  a  few  weeks  and  had 
been  well  received  by  the  neighbors, 
many  of  whom,  irreproachably 
gowned  and  gloved,  had  called  on 
our  wife.  As  these  calls  had  been 
for  the  most  part  in  the  afternoon, 
she  was  spared  any  mortification 
that  our  unguarded  remarks  or 
seedy  appearance  might  have  caused 
her. 

But  an  invitation  to  the  lawyer's 
house  to  meet  some  social  lion 
opened  up  to  the  eyes  of  our  wife 
almost  unlimited  opportunities  in 
either  direction.  This  was  duly  im- 
pressed on  us  by  our  helpmeet  and 
we  were  made  to  understand  clearly 
that  upon  our  conduct  and  appearance 

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NEIGHBORHOOD   SKETCHES 


everything  depended.  Either  our  star 
would  be  in  the  ascendant,  or,  like  the 
"star  of  treason"  in  the  reading  book, 
would  "descend  to  eternal  night" 

IN   TRAINING. 

With  the  view  of  avoiding  this 
hideous  contingency,  we  set  our- 
selves to  work  to  undergo  a  vigor- 
ous course  of  mental  training  to 
meet  all  demands  of  an  intellectual 
nature  that  might  be  made  upon 
us.  We  reflected  that  we  would 
meet  the  Greek  Professor,  and  we 
at  once  waded  into  Greek  articles 
de  and  an  which  we  vaguely  re- 
membered to  have  been  a  fruitful 
subject  of  discussion  in  our  far- 
away school  days. 

We  considered  the  probability  of 
meeting  the  Professor  of  Ancient 
History,  and  to  avoid  the  untoward 
results  of  a  fall  at  the  hands  of  this 
gentleman  we  hunted  up  an  old  vol- 
ume of  "Freeman's  Outlines  of  His- 
tory" and  fell  to  with  determination. 

We  knew  that  our  French  had 
been  hopelessly  corrupted  by  our 
business  associations  with  brick- 
yard Canadians,  and  we  took  a  men- 
tal oath  not  to  be  led  into  any  dis- 
cussion with  the  French  Instructor, 
that  called  for  quotations  in  that 
tongue.  We  had  mental  reserva- 
tions of  equal  pungency  as  to  our 
ability  to  converse  in  the  guttural 
accents  of  Deutchland,  and  so  de- 
cided after  deep  thought  to  avoid 
anything  like  an  open  engagement 
with  the  German  Instructor,  and  to 
confine  ourself  to  a  mild  discussion 
of  the  relative  influence  of  Kant  and 
Hegel  from  a  psychological  point 
of  view. 

"Hector    Berlioz's    Modern    Or- 


chestration" and  Philip  Hale's  criti- 
cisms in  the  Boston  papers  gave  us 
some  ideas,  chiefly  dyspeptic,  of  the 
progress  in  musical  thought,  while 
"Lessing's  Laocoon/'  a  vag^e  remi- 
niscence of  our  school  days,  furnished 
us  with  mental  pabulum  of  an  artistic 
nature. 

In  this  way  did  we  strive  to  fit  our- 
self, at  least  partially,  to  pass  the  social 
examination  that  we  felt  was  before  us. 

GIRDING  ON  OUR  ARMOR« 

Another  thing  that  disturbed  us  was 
the  necessity  of  wearing  a  dress  coat 
Now  we  had  never  worn  a  dress  coat, 
our  wildest  ambitions  never  having 
gone  beyond  the  cutaway.  On  one 
occasion  to  attend  a  funeral  we  had, 
in  deference  to  the  occasion,  borrowed 
a  Prince  Albert  and  purchased  a  white 
necktie  in  which  we  arrayed  ourself, 
and  we  shall  never  forget  how,  when 
our  carriage;  by  mistake  or  design  left 
us  a  mile  from  home,  we  strode  home- 
ward, amid  the  outspoken  comment  of 
the  populace,  which  wondered  but  re- 
joiced exceedingly  over  our  metamor- 
phosis. 

And  so,  although  we  chafed  sorely 
over  this  necessity,  we  yielded,  as  so 
many  before  us  have  yielded,  to  the 
force  of  circumstances. 

When  the  evening  came  for  the 
social  event  we  were  keyed  up  to  the 
highest  point,  possibly  a  trifle  over- 
trained, but  scenting  battle  and  eager 
for  the  trial.  True,  our  unfamiliar  and 
uncomfortable  harness  put  us  at  a  dis- 
advantage (we  are  never  so  comfort- 
able as. when  we  have  our  hands  in 
our  pockets),  and  we  must  confess 
that  we  were  a  trifle  nervous  and  a 
little  muddled  by  the  manifold  injunc- 
tions of  our  wife,  who  manifested  a 


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deplorable  lack  of  confidence  in  our 
generalship. 

Owing  to  the  secretive  disposition 
of  a  refractory  collar  button,  most  of 
the  guests  had  arrived  when  we  were 
announced,  and  the  din  of  general 
conversation  was  deafening.  This 
tended  to  put  us  at  our  ease,  and  as 
we  were  hospitably  and  pleasantly 
welcomed  by  our  hosts  we  soon  com- 
menced to  chirp  and  try  our  wings  a 
little.  We  had  heard  that  a  good  lis- 
tener often  gets  the  reputation  of  be- 
ing a  brilliant  talker,  and  had  we  acted 
on  that  principle  all  would  have  been 
well.  But  we  were  so  loaded  down 
with  miscellaneous  information  ac- 
quired during  our  week  of  toil,  that 
we  must  needs  unload  a  little  for  the 
benefit  of  some  one,  and  so,  after  see- 
ing our  wife  engaged  in  earnest  con- 
versation with  a  distinguished  doctor 
of  divinity  over  Wely's  offertoire  in 
E  flat,  and  the  prospect  of  a  vox  hu- 
mana  in  the  new  organ,  we  proceeded 
to  tackle  the  Greek  Professor. 

WE     MAKE    THINGS    LIVELY    FOR    THE 
PROFESSOR  OF  GREEK. 

Now  the  Greek  Professor  wanted  to 
talk  about  his  baby  boy's  predilection 
for  running  away  and  causing  the 
neighborhood  to  frequently  organize 
into  searching  parties,  and  we  should 
have  encouraged  him,  but  we  artfully 
turned  the  conversation  to  Greek  and 
delivered  the  first  blow,  a  swinging 
right  intended  for  a  knockout  blow, 
upon   Xenophon's  use  of  article   de. 

The  Professor  ducked  nimbly  and 
countered  with  a  dissertation  on  the 
"reason  for  the  early  disuse  of  the  di- 
gamma. 

This  was  a  staggerer  for  us,  and  as 
we  knew  nothing  about  the  digamma 


we  came  up  very  groggy  and  sparred 
cautiously  to  regain  our  wind.  As  the 
Professor  was  himself  a  little  winded 
from  his  exertions,  we  put  in  an  upper 
cut  in  the  shape  of  an  argument  that, 
while  until  recently  the  weight  of 
authority  was  with  the  Professor, 
Professor  LittleoflFski,  of  the  Uni- 
versity of  St.  Petersburg,  had  written 
a  dissertation  in  which  he  claimed 
that  the  digamma  was  used  as  late  as 
the  Oiristian  Era. 

This  proved  an  extinguisher  for  the 
Professor  and  he  promptly  went  down 
and  out,  and  we  turned  to  demolish  a 
new  opponent. 

ANGLO-SAXON  HAS  NO  TERRORS  FOR 
US. 

We  met  him  in  the  person  of  the 
Professor  of  English  and  Anglo- 
Saxon,  a  most  dignified  and  courteous 
gentleman  of  about  our  age.  Like 
the  Professor  of  Greek,  this  gentle- 
man was  peaceably  inclined  and 
showed  a  marked  preference  for  con- 
versation upon  topics  that  ordinarily 
would  have  interested  us  keenly,  but 
his  innate  courtesy  would  not  allow 
him  to  balk  our  evident  desire  to  dis- 
cuss the  racial  kinship  existing  be- 
tween the  Anglo-Saxon  and  the  an- 
cient German  dialects,  and  the  influ- 
ence on  the  former  by  the  seven  inva- 
sions of  England  by  the  Teutonic  races. 

We  found  the  Professor  so  well 
posted  in  this  subject  that  we  were 
put  to  great  straits  to  maintain  our 
position.  Seeing  our  distress  the  Pro- 
fessor pressed  us  so  hard  that  we  were 
rapidly  breaking  ground,  when  as  if 
by  an  inspiration  we  staggered  the 
Professor  by  claiming  with  much  ap- 
parent frankness,  that  while  we  did 
not   doubt  the  Professor's  profound 


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erudition  on  a  subject  about  which  we 
knew  but  little,  still  we  were  quite  sure 
that  Dafydd  ab  Gwilym,  one  of  the 
leading  Welsh  poets  and  scholars, 
took  the  opposite  view,  and  we  com- 
pleted his  bewilderment  by  improvis- 
ing the  following  sweet  little  Welsh 
gem,  in  support  of  our  proposition : — 

"Fjrrd  glymra  edrijj  gnuirrg 
Balr  kymric  dnaric  edulbrrj." 

The  Professor  was  utterly  unable  to 
answer  this  argument  and  retired  in 
great  disorder,  while  several  of  the 
guests  who  were  listening  to  the  dis- 
cussion regarded  us  with  the  deepest 
veneration. 

WATERLOO. 

For  a  while  our  efforts  to  engage 
some  one  in  discussion  over  scientific 
or  classical  points  were  fruitless,  as  the 
guests  for  some  unaccountable  reason, 
at  least  unaccountable  to  us,  preferred 
to  talk  on  topics  of  everyday  interest, 
golf,  football,  rummage  sales,  politics, 
housekeeping  and  subjects  of  similar 
nature. 

But  at  last  we  succeeded  in  getting 
the  Professor  of  History  in  a  comer 
and  at  once  engaged  him.  For  a  while 
he  kept  us  from  historical  discussion 
by  artfully  talking  about  his  horse,  and 
trying  to  awaken  an  interest  in  the 
subject  by  asking  us  what  had  become 
of  our  riding  pony  and  other  questions 
of  common  and  kindly  interest,. but  in 
vain,  for  we  deftly  turned  the  conver- 
sation to  historical  topics  by  drawing 
a  parallel  between'  the  modern  Ken- 
tucky singlefooter  and  the  sumpter 
mule  that  Alexander  rode  in  his  cam- 
paigns. 

To  this  the  Professor  of  History, 
now  fairly  at  bay,  took  exception,  and 
claimed  that  Alexander  never  rode  a 
mule,  but  that  on  occasions  of  actual 


battle  he  descended  from  a  gorgeous 
palanquin  and  mounted  a  magnificent 
charger. 

Several  sharp  exchanges  took  place 
between  us,  in  which  the  Professor  of 
History,  thoroughly  at  home  in  his 
subject,  had  rather  the  advantage,  and 
the  discussion  attracted  several  per- 
sons to  our  vicinity,  among  whom  was 
the  Professor  of  Greek.  Wishing  to 
demonstrate  the  correctness  of  our 
theory  and  to  extinguish  the  Professor 
of  History,  we  remarked  that  we  were 
quite  correct  in  our  premises,  having 
recently  read  it  in  the  original  Latin 
of  Demosthenes. 

There  was  a  dreadful  pause,  broken 
by  the  clear  and  incisive  accents  of  the 
Professor  of  Greek,  who  said  dryly: 
"Mr.  S is  indeed  fortunate  in  be- 
ing singled  out  for  the  unique  distinc- 
tion of  having  read  Demosthenes  in 
the  original  Latin.  Such  of  us  who 
have  only  read  him  in  the  Greek  cer- 
tainly congratulate  our  friend." 

The  circle  broke  up  and  we  were 
left  stranded,  a  ringing  in  our  ears 
and  a  blur  before  our  eyes  through 
which  we  dimly  discerned  the  crim- 
soned countenance  of  our  wife,  who 
had  approached  the  group  in  season  to 
witness  our  discomfiture. 

SYMPATHY  WITH  THE  AFFLICTED. 

The  arrival  of  refreshments  di- 
verted attention  from  us,  and  we  im- 
proved the  occasion  to  take  a  hurried 
walk. 

"Forth  from  out  the  mighty  forest 
Rushed  the  maddened  Hiawatha." 

On  our  return  we  hung  around  the 

entry  and  kept  very  quiet  until  the 

time  came  for  our  departure.    As  we 

walked  musingly  and  sadly  homeward, 

our  wife  feelingly  remarked  that  if  we 

had  paid  as  much   attention   to   our 


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book  on  "G)rrect  Form"  as  we  had  in 
looking  up  information  about  which 
nobody  cared,  we  would  have  known, 
without  having  every  one  laughing  at 
us,  that  it  was  not  the  proper  thing 
to  button  up  our  dress  coat. 

And  thus  we  were  forcibly  brought 
to  a  realizing  sense  of  the  truth  of 
Scott's  lines: — 

"Oh,  woman  in  our  hour  of  case, 

♦        ♦        *        * 

When  pairf  and  anguish  wring  the  brow 
A  ministering  angel  thou." 

III. 

DIE  WEIBESVEREINIGUNG. 

Some  few  weeks  after  our  experi- 
ence at  the  house  of  the  wife  of  the 
member  of  the  bar  (this  sounds  like 
the  "House  that  Jack  built"),  we  were 
made  very  happy  by  an  event  that  in 
our  unworthiness  and  humility  we  had 
scarcely  dared  to  anticipate.  An  unex- 
pected legacy  would  have  made  us 
complacently  reminiscent  over  ex- 
tremely shaky  financial  crises,  and 
have  put  us  in  a  position  to  contemp- 
late the  future  joyously;  an  appoint- 
ment to  a  lucrative  sinecure  would 
have  enabled  us  to  cast  care  to  the 
winds,  "Away  with  melancholy";  an 
invitation  to  make  a  continental  trip  at 
the  expense  of  a  client  would  have  ex- 
panded our  heart  to  a  delightfully 
apoplectic  degree;  but  the  unexpected 
honor  to  which  we  were  treated  was 
so  far  beyond  these  that  we  felt  at 
once  rich,  honored  and  travelled. 

What  can  it  have  been  to  have  so 
completely  thrown  us  off  our  poise? 
We  who  have  for  years  received  the 
buffets  of  fortune  and  its  meagre  com- 
pensations for  said  buffets  with  well 
dissembled  indifference, — ^we  mention 
it  with  deference,  veneration,  awe  and 
bated  breath;  we  whisper   it   with  a 


swelling  in  the  throat,  a  dimness  of  the 
eyes  and  a  thankfulness  in  the  heart 
that  is  almost  beyond  expression — 
our  wife  was  admitted  to  full  member- 
ship in  the  Weibesvereinigung! !  ad- 
mitted after  an  obstinate  contest  last- 
ing a  w;hole  year,  admitted  after 
reading  the  resolution  and  moving 
the  previous  question,  and  amend- 
ing the  resolution  and  amending 
the  amendment  to  the  resolution, 
and  amending  the  amendment  to 
the  amendment  to  the  resolution, 
and  calling  for  the  yeas  and  nays, 
and  doubting  the  vote,  and  polling 
the  house,  and  objecting  to  the 
count,  and  adjourning,  and  dissolv- 
ing, and  taking  reccfsses,  and  recon- 
vening and  administering  cloture, 
and  refusing  to  allow  cloture  to  be 
administered,  and  objecting  to  the 
lady  as  out  of  order,  atid  claiming 
the  floor,  and  rising  to  a  point  of  or- 
der, and  being  declared  out  of  order, 
and  other  proceedings  of  great  par- 
liamentary technicality. 

Whether  it  was  due  to  a  deadlock 
over  members  of  the  waiting  list,  in 
which  our  wife  appeared  as  a  dark 
horse,  or  to  our  recent  emersion 
from  thef  sloughs  of  corduroys  and 
leggings,  or  to  the  engaging  traits  of 
our  wife's  husband,  we  cannot  say, 
and  although  we  incline  to  the  lat- 
ter reason,  we  do  not  care  particular- 
ly. We,  that  is,  our  wife,  are  there, 
and  our  respectability,  nay,  our  social 
standing  is  fixed  beyond  cavil. 

ITS  AIMS. 

The  aim  of  this  worthy  and 
weighty  aggregation  of  bluestock- 
ings, this  union  of  pince-nezzed  and 
spectacled  delvers  after  the  true 
nuggets    of    wisdom,    is    threefold: 


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First,  to  develop  knowledge  of  par- 
liamentary procedure.  Second,  to 
encourage  general  information,  in- 
cluding our  fir-t  century,  the  gentle 
arts  of  tatting,  Hamburg  edging, 
battenburg,  plain  sewing  and  hem- 
stitching. Third,  and  here  we  bor- 
row for  a  moment  the  language  we 
years  ago  learned  from  our  delight- 
ful associations  with  the  Velocipede 
Qub,  the  Exeter  Whist  Qub  and 
kindred  organizations  to  which  we 
once  belonged,  "to  knock  spots  out 
of  any  other  organization  going." 

OTHER  CLUBS. 

It  differs  from  the  Hither  and 
Yon  Club  in  many  respects.  While 
the  Hither  and  Yon  Qub  are  read- 
ing "Childe  Harold,"  the  Weibes- 
vereinigung  is  working  overtime  on 
the  Stamp  Act  and  the  Continental 
Congress. 

While  the  H.  &  Y.  are  fairly 
thrilled  over  the  mysteries  of  a  new 
stitch  for  piazza  scarfs,  the  Wv.  are 
turning  out  battenburg  doilies  for 
afternoon  teas  in  bewildering  pro- 
fusion. 

The  Wv.  also  claims  precedence 
over  the  Daily  Happenings  Club. 
This  latter  organization  likewise 
conducts  its  meetings  with  due  re- 
gard for  the  forms  prescribed  by 
Cushing,  elects  its  members  only 
after  a  rigid  examination  into  their 
manners,  morals,  *'race,  ag:e  and 
previous  condition  of  servitude." 

The  D.  H.  C.  aims  to  keep  au 
courant  of  the  times,  paying  particu- 
lar attention  to  the  daily  issues  of 
our  uncensored  press,  and  for  this 
purpose  takes  the  New  York  Times, 
the  Chicago  Tribune,  the  Saturday 
Evening  Express  and  Tozvn  Topics, 


There  are  several  D.  H.  Clubs,  it 
being  well  understood  that  any  per- 
son failing  to  satisfy  the  critical  in- 
spection of  the  membership  com- 
mittee of  one  D.  H.  C.  can  get  up  a 
club  of  her  own. 

But  there  is  but  one — but  one 
Weibesvereinigung. 

There  are  other  clubs,  not  dis- 
tinctly local,  but  more  or  less  exotic 
as  far  as  the  Greek  Quarter  is  con- 
cerned. These  clubs  are  for  the 
most  part  sectarian  organizations, 
whose  main  objects  are  the  aggran- 
dizement of  the  particular  church  to 
which  the  members  belong,  and  the 
incidental  enjoyment  of  amateur 
theatricals,  chaperoned  dances,  food 
fairs  and  candy  pulls.  But  in  these 
we  have  no  particular  interest,  for 
the  affairs  of  the  Wv.  have  occupied 
a  considerable  part  of  our  time,  al- 
most to  the  exclusion  of  our  busi- 
ness interests. 

It  is  a  rule  of  this  most  worthy 
organization  that  new  members 
must  be  tried  as  by  fire  to  see  if  they 
are  dross  or  pure  gold.  This  is  ac- 
complished not  by  means  of  physical 
initiations,  but  by  mental  tasks  of 
gjeat  difficulty,  which  call  for  a  pro- 
digious amount  of  hard  study  and 
patient  research. 

So  we  were  not  surprised  when 
our  wife  came  home  from  one  of  the 
weekly  meetings  with  a  look  of 
great  importance  on  her  face  and 
lodged  a  peremptory  demand  for 
unlimited  reference  books  in  order 
to  successfully  cope  with  an  assign- 
ment upon  "The  Controversy 
as  to  Parliamentary  Authority  dur- 
ing the  Pre-Revolutionary  Strug- 
gle." 


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555 


WE  IMPROVE  OUR  MIND. 

For  seven  mortal  days  from  that 
time  the  very  atmosphere  of  our 
little  dwelling  fairly  quivered  with 
historical  suggestions.  Often  we 
could  see  by  the  simple  process  of 
-closing  our  eyes,  a  long  procession 
of  colonels,  governors,  lieutenant 
governors,  members  of  the  General 
Court,  Cushingfs,  Hancocks,  Otises, 
Adamses,  Hutchinsons,  Olivers, 
Royalists,  rebels,  Tories,  all  clad  in 
satin  smalls^  silk  stockings  and  red 
nK)rocco  shoes,  and  all  staring  re- 
proachfully at  us  as  if  we  alone  were 
instrumental  in  disturbing  them  in 
their  long  sleep. 

And  we  found  no  difficulty  in 
closing  our  eyes  whenever  we  got 
the  chance,  for  the  greater  part  ot 
our  time  during  our  waking  hours 
was  spent  in  trips  to  the  library  to 
secure  reference  books  covering  the 
points  in  issue.  During  these  few 
but  long  days  we  carried  to  our 
house  no  fewer  than  twenty-eight 
books  of  reference  and  other  books, 
all  of  them  heavy,  unwieldly  books 
of  many  pounds  weight  each,  among 
which  were  selected  volumes  of  En- 
cyclopaedia Brittanica,  Johnson's 
and  the  American,  Bryce's  Amer- 
ican Commonwealth,  Dictionary  of 
Synonyms,  Familiar  Quotations, 
and  Hosmer's  American  Statesmen. 

The  pleasant  relaxations  of  music 
and  magazines  that  made  our  even- 
ings so  delightful  were  given  up, 
and  every  moment  was  devoted  to 
study. 

The  night  before  the  meeting  at 
which  all  this  concentrated  knowl- 
edge was  to  be  poured  out  in  the 
shape    of    oratorical    nuggets,    we 


went  to  bed  greatly  fagged  with  the 
unusual  exertion  of  reaching  up 
and  taking  down  our  entire  collec- 
tion of  bound  volumes  of  Harper's, 
About  midnight  we  awoke  and 
heard  the  sound  of  a  voice  in  the 
rooms  below.  Cautiously  creeping 
down  the  stairs  and  peering  into  the 
study,  we  beheld  the  wife  of  our 
bosom,  with  the  fires  of  intellectual 
ardor  shining  through  her  specta- 
cles, delivering  herself  of  the  fol- 
lowing preamble  to  her  "assign- 
ment" :— 

"Mrs.  President"— a  graceful  sal- 
utation— "and  ladies," — another  wide- 
ly comprehensive  obeisance, — "it  is 
difficult,  if  not  impossible  in  the  few 
minutes  one  can  snatch  from  the 
manifold  but  necessary  duties  per- 
taining to  a  household,  to  do  more 
than  to  vaguely  outline  the  events 
of  the  period  fraught  with  so  many 
vital  interests  to  us,  the  descendants 
of  the  heroes  of — " 

But  this  was  enough  for  us  and 
we  crawled  back  to  bed. 

The  next  day  we  were  unusually 
busy,  but  on  our  return  after  a  day's 
absence,  we  were  informed  by  our 
wife  that  her  effort  had  been  favor- 
ably received  and  most  courteously 
commented  on  by  the  members  of 
the  Wv. 

APPRECIATION. 

A  few  days  afterwards  at  the  rail- 
road station,  while  waiting  for  the 
8.59  train  for  Boston,  we  overheard 
three  members  of  the  Wv.  talking 
over  the  meeting,  somewhat  as  fol- 
lows : — 

"Good  morning,  Mrs.  B.  I  was 
sorry  not  to  have  been  able  to  attend 
the  last  meeting  of  the  Wv.  and  so 


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556  VOX   HUMANA 

disaiq)ointed    at    not    hearing    dear  terested  in  tatting  those  doilies  for 

Mrs.   S's.   paper.     I   understand   it  the  food  fair,  that  we  didn't  listen 

was  very  good."  vcfry  much.    Have  you  seen  the  pat- 

"Yes,  it  was  well  written  and  well  terns  ?"  and  thereupon  an  immedi- 

delivered,  and  showed  a  good  com-  ate  exhibition  was  insisted  on,  and 

mand  over  the  subject."  the  long  days  of  laborious  prepara- 

"What  was  the  subject,  Mrs.  B.?"  tion  and   research  were   forgotten. 

"Well,   now  let   me  see,  it  was  We  took  our  train  musing  on  this 

something     about     the      Adamses,  particular  species  of  the  "touch  of 

wasn't  it,  Mrs.  F.  ?"  nature  that  makcrth  the  whole  world 

"Why,  yes,  I  think  so,  Mrs.  B.,  but  kin,"  and  realizing  as  never  before 

I  cannot  really  say.     You  see  Mrs.  the  great  educational  benefits  that 

T.  and  Miss  W.  and  I  were  so  in-  these  clubs  must  confer. 

(To  be  continued.) 


Vox  Humana 

Charlotte  Becker 

I    AM  so  weary,  dear,  of  this  gray  living, 
So  weary  of  the  lonely,  barren  days. 
Of  smiling  when  my  heart  is  faint  and  hungry 

For  want  of  you,  and  your  sweet,  madd'ning  ways. 

How  strange  it  was  you  did  not  know  I  loved  you, 
That  your  least  word  found  echo  in  my  heart ; 

That  when  you  thought  me  careless  and  unheeding, 
It  took  my  fiercest  strength  to  play  the  part. 

I  dared  not  lift  my  eyes  lest  they  betray  me, 
Nor  let  a  traitor  word  wake  your  alarms, 

When  all  my  soul  cried  out  in  stifled  longing 
To  conquer  Fate  and  fold  you  in  my  arms. 

I  wonder  if — could  circumstance  have  loosed  me. 
And  let  my  lips  speak  truths  you  dreamed  not  of — 

You  would  have  listened  to  my  eager  pleading. 
And  friendliness  have  ripened  into  love? 

Ah  well,  my  questioning  must  go  unanswered — 
Thank  God,  I  did  not  make  you  sorrow-wise — 

And  yet,  dear  love,  it  is  my  greatest  comfort 
That  some  day  you  may  know  my  sacrifice ! 


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A  Man,  a  Maid  and  a  Motor 


By  Charles  Battell  Loomis 


AT  the  breakfast  table  on  the 
morning  before  Christmas 
Miss  Mabel  Maxwell  said, 
looking  up  from  a  letter  she 
had  just  received,  "Esther,  Tom  is 
coming  home  after  all.  He  says  that 
he  has  made  an  arrangement  with  one 
of  the  other  partners,  by  which  he 
can  get  away  for  a  week.  Isn't  it 
splendid.  I  haven't  seen  Tom  since 
he  went  out  to  Chicago,  five  years  ago. 
You've  never  seen  him,  have  you?" 

Esther  blushed  a  delightful  shade 
of  red  as  she  answered  in  the  nega- 
tive. She  blushed  where  some  girls 
smiled  or  looked  interested. 

"I  do  hope  you'll  like  him,"  said 
Mabel.  "He's  tall  and  very  fair.  And 
so  bashful.  He'll  probably  avoid  you, 
and  be  dying  to  talk  to  you." 

"Yes,  Tom's  shy  as  a  mountain 
goat,"  said  Jack,  Mabel's  younger 
brother.  "You'll  have  to  corner  him, 
Esther,  and  talk  up.  He's  only  twen- 
ty-six, and  he  isn't  used  to  girls,  you 
know." 

Again  Esther  blushed,  but  this  time 
a  mischievous  look  came  into  her 
eyes.  She  would  try  to  cure  Tom  of 
his  bashfulness.  Twenty-six,  and 
bashful ! 

After  breakfast  Jack  corralled 
Mabel  in  the  hall,  and  said : 

"Say,  Sisterino,  wouldn't  it  be 
rather  nice  if  Tom  fell  in  love  with 
Esther?" 

"You're  a  silly  boy,"  said  his  sister, 
who  was  a  year  older  than  he,  and 


twenty  years  wiser.  But  there  is 
reason  to  think  that  the  thought  was 
not  new  to  her.  Certainly  she  loved 
her  old  college  chum  well  enough  to 
wish  her  for  a  real  sister.  But  Jack's 
method  of  speech  was  rather  brutal, 
and  she  gave  him  no  encouragement. 

Esther  Hathome  was  spending  the 
Christmas  holidays  with  the  Max- 
wells, who  lived  on  the  Sound,  not  far 
from  Stamford.  She  and  Mabel  had 
spent  four  years  together  at  Vassar, 
and  they  were  more  sisterlike  than 
sisters, — than  some  sisters,  that  is. 

While  Tom  Maxwell,  who  had  been 
speeding  across  states  from  Chicago, 
was  entering  the  suburban  section  of 
the  metropolis,  another  Tom,  whose 
last  name  was  Hardin,  was  hurriedly 
packing  his  valise  in  order  to  catch 
the  4.03  train  for  Stamford  and  her 
sister  towns.  He  had  accepted  an  in- 
vitation to  join  a  house  party  at 
Raven  Crest,  which,  as  all  the  world 
knows,  or  that  portion  of  it,  at  least, 
that  reads  the  papers,  is  owned  by 
Archie  MacQuoid,  who  is  only  twen- 
ty-two, and  yet  a  sextuple  millionaire 
in  his  own  right. 

Tom  Hardin,  son  of  Hardin,  the 
copper  king,  also  well  known  to  read- 
ers of  society  notes,  was  called  the 
giant  cherub  by  his  regimental  com- 
rades, because  of  his  fair  and  cherubic 
face,  which  crowned  some  six  feet  of 
body. 

His  six  feet  (and  two  legs,  to  be  ex- 
plicit) stood  him  in  good  stead  when 

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A   MAN,   A   MAID   AND   A   MOTOR 


he  tried  to  catch  the  4.03,  for  he  had 
not  a  minute  when  he  stepped  from 
the  cab  and  started  to  run  through  the 
Grand  Central  station,  and  most  men 
would  have  given  it  up  as  an  impossi- 
bility, and  taken  the  next  train. 

The  man  who  had  just  come  in 
from  Chicago  had  four  minutes  to 
make  the  shift  from  one  train  to  the 
other,  but  he  gave  it  up  because  a 
lady  asked  him  a  question,  and  be- 
tween stammering  and  yammering 
and  trying  to  answer  her  and  not  be 
overcome  by  his  bashfulness,  he  took 
so  long  about  it  that  when  he  finally 
managed  to  tell  her  that  the  station 
had  been  wholly  altered  since  he  was 
last  in  it,  he  discovered  that  the  gate 
had  been  closed  and  he  would  be 
fgrced  to  take  the  next  train  for  his 
parents'  home. 

Meanwhile  Jack  Maxwell  had  in- 
sisted that  Esther  go  down  to  the  sta- 
tion with  Patrick  to  get  his  brother. 
"You'll  have  a  chance  to  cure  him  of 
his  bashfulness  on  the  way  up.  Pat 
can  walk  back.  Tom  knows  how  to 
run  an  auto,  and  by  the  time  you 
reach  the  house  hell  be  broken  to 
travelling  with  you  and  conversation 
with  him  will  be  possible.  Otherwise 
he^ll  be  afraid  to  say  a  word  to  you 
and  ril  feel  like  kicking  him." 

"I  don't  quite  like  going  down 
alone,"  said  Esther. 

"You  won't  be  alone.  Pat  will  take 
you  down  and  will  wait  until  the  train 
comes  and  then  Tom  will  be  with  you. 
You  must  call  him  Tom  and  act  as  if 
you  were  his  sister.  That's  the  only 
way  to  treat  him.  If  you  act  reserved 
he'll  act  worse  and  he'll  be  simply  im- 
possible." 

"Jack's  right,"  said  Mabel.    "Tom 


will  really  be  delighted  to  see  you, 
but  he'll  be  very  chilling  and  reserved 
and  you  must  simply  break  the  ice  by 
calling  him  Tom  and  telling  him  you 
feel  as  if  you'd  always  known  him." 

"Well,  I  do  feel  that  way,  I've  heard 
so  much  about  him  and  sent  so  many 
messages  to  him." 

"Why,  of  course,  and  you  must 
make  him  feel  it,  too." 

"I'd  give  five  cents  to  see  Tom 
when  Pat  brings  him  up  to  the  auto 
and  sees  Esther.    Gee!" 

"My  son,"  said  Mrs.  Maxwell, 
"how  often  have  I  asked  you  not  to 
use  that  vulgar  word?" 

"Lost  count,  mother,"  said  Jack, 
stooping  to  kiss  her  as  he  passed  out 
of  the  room. 

The  4.03  whirled  along  the  in- 
dented coast  line  of  Connecticut,  and 
at  last  a  slackening  of  her  speed  told 
Tom  Hardin  that  he  was  nearing  his 
destination.  He  took  his  suit  case  out 
of  the  rack  and  started  for  the  door, 
being  a  thorough  New  Yorker  and 
never  losing  the  precious  moments 
that  cluster  around  car  egress  and  in- 
gress. I 

He  expected  to  be  met  by  his  old 
college  chum,  Archie  MacQuoid,  of 
Raven  Crest,  but  he  did  not  see  the 
latter's  automobile  at  the  station.  He 
left  the  car  and  looked  around,  not 
caring  to  take  a  cab  until  he  was  sure 
that  there  was  no  one  to  meet  him. 

Now  it  so  happened  that  when  Pat- 
rick had  driven  the  automobile  of  the 
Maxwells  to  the  station  he  left  Esther 
in  it  and  went  into  the  baggage-room 
to  find  out  what  had  happened  to  a 
certain  Christmas  package  that  had 
gone  wrong.  He  cautioned  her  not 
to  touch  the  lever. 


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559 


"I'll  be  back,  ma'am,  before  the 
train  comes." 

"Well,  be  sure  to,"  said  Esther, 
"because  I  don't  know  Mr.  Maxwell." 

But  he  did  not  come  back,  for  the 
matter  of  the  Christmas  package 
took  up  his  entire  intelligence  (not  a 
large  stock)  and  made  him  dead  to 
all  else. 

However,  Esther  was  not  afraid 
that  the  machine  would  run  away 
with  her,  and  she  rather  enjoyed  the 
thought  of  picking  her  bashful 
friend  out  of  the  crowd. 

The  tram  stopped  and  a  tall,  blonde 
young  man  got  off  and  looked  bash- 
ful, as  she  thought,  although  it  was 
really  an  expression  of  uncertainty,  as 
there  was  nothing  bashful  about  Tom 
Hardin. 

He  walked  up  the  platform  looking 
for  the  automobile,  and  when  he 
came  opposite  her  she  called  out  with 
an  asstmiption  of  camaraderie  that  sat 
remarkably  well  on  her,  "I  guess 
you're  looking  for  me,  Tom." 

Tom  Hardin  stopped,  looked  at  her, 
took  in  her  beauty  in  a  moment,  dis- 
missed as  impossible  the  thought  that 
had  flitted  through  his  mind,  and  de- 
cided quickly  that  this  was  a  charm- 
ing member  of  the  house  party,  prob- 
ably a  bachelor  maid  used  to  taking 
care  of  herself  and  fully  capable 
of  taking  him  up  in  the  auto  without 
any  assistance  from  him,  which  was 
lucky,  as  he  did  not  know  how  to  run 
one  himself,  preferring  horseflesh  to 
any  self-propelling  machines. 

"I — am — ^Tom,"  said  he,  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  hesitancy,  which  Es- 
ther magnified  ten-fold  to  fit  her  pre- 
conception. 

"Well,  I'm  Esther.    Jump  m." 


Now  he  knew  what  he  was  at.  He 
had  often  heard  Archie  MacQuoid 
speak  about  Esther  Merle,  an  old 
friend  of  the  family,  of  no  little  ec- 
centricity, but  of  sterling  worth. 

He  extended  his  hand  just  as  he 
would  have  done  it  to  a  fellow,  and 
said  heartily:  "Glad  to  meet  you, 
Esther.  If  you  don't  Uke  me  to  call 
you  Esther,  just  say  so." 

"But  I  do  like  it,  between  people ' 
who  know  all  about  each  other,  even 
if  they  haven't  met." 

"Surely.  How  are  they  all?  Got 
a  full  house?" 

"So  so.  We're  all  there.  Will  you 
wait  for  Pat  or  will  you  start  it?" 

"Oh,  there's  a  Pat,  is  there?  I 
thought  you  were  nmning  it. 
Where'U  he  sit?  On  my  lap  or — 
where'll  he  sit?" 

"He  isn't  necessary  at  all,"  said 
Esther,  feeUng  that  Tom  was  under- 
going a  regular  January  thaw.  If 
this  was  bashfulness  she  would  like  to 
know  what  assurance  was.  And  yet 
she  liked  it.  After  all,  why  should  not 
he  be  perfectly  outspoken  and  simple. 
They  had  heard  about  each  other  for 
the  last  six  years.  They  had  sent 
each  other  regards  in  letter  after  let- 
ter, and  nothing  save  actual  associa- 
tion was  needed  to  make  them  old 
friends. 

*'Well,"  said  Tom  to  himself,  "if 
Pat  isn't  necessary  that's  a  different 
guess  from  the  one  that  I  would  have 
made."  Out  loud  he  said  very 
calmly,  although  his  heart  was  b^in- 
ning  to  thump,  "Do  you  know  how  to 
nm  this?" 

"I?  Mercy,  no.  I  was  almost 
afraid  to  sit  in  it  alone,  for  fear  it 
might  take  it  into  its  head  to  start." 


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A   MAN,   A   MAID   AND   A   MOTOR 


"Take  it  into  its  cylinder  head  is 
more  accurate,"  said  Tom.  "Well, 
perhaps  we'd  better  wait  for  Pat." 

"No,  no,"  said  Esther.  "You 
know  how  to  run  it,  and  he's  awfully 
dense,  really." 

Tom  dug  his  heels  into  the  floor 
and  tried  to  look  unconcerned.  If 
Esther  Merle,  who  was  a  thorough- 
bred, thought  that  he  knew  how  to 
manage  an  automobile,  he'd  die  before 
he'd  undeceive  her. 

"I  never  ran  one  just  like  this.  It 
looks  simpler  than  some  of  them." 

"It  must  be  simple  or  Pat  wouldn't 
have  learned  to  run  it.  I  remember  he 
pulled  that  long  thing  to  start  it." 

"Of  course,"  said  Tom.  "That 
long  thing,  as  you  call  it,  is  a  lever. 
Well,  bid  good-by  to  home  and 
mother — er — Esther,  for  I  am  going 
to  give  you  the  ride  of  your  life." 

"Will  you  go  fast?  How  jolly. 
Pat  is  always  so  afraid  he'll  be  ar- 
rested for  fast  driving  that  there's  no 
fun  going  out  with  him." 

Tom  pulled  the  lever  and  the  ma- 
chine leaped  forward  gaily.  The 
road  before  him  was  wide  and 
straight,  but  for  caution's  sake  he  fid- 
dled around  for  the  brake,  and  inci- 
dentally made  the  machine  cut  the  let- 
ter O  on  the  hard  macadamized  road. 

"What'd  you  do  that  for?"  said 
Esther,  her  heart  in  her  mouth. 

"Wanted  to  get  the  hang  of  it,"  said 
Tom  with  perfect  truth.  His  next  at- 
tempt was  more  successful,  or  per- 
haps less  so,  according  as  you  meas- 
ure success.  He  found  the  brake,  but 
he  and  Esther  nearly  broke  the  dash- 
board, not  having  expected  to  stop 
going  so  soon. 
.   "Oh,  I  beg  a  thousand  pardons," 


said  Tom.  "I  didn't  know  she'd 
mind  so  quickly.     Are  you  l^rt?" 

"No,  tt  wasn't  quite  as  bad  as  a 
Broadway  trolley." 

Tom  now  backed  the  machine  and 
then  went  forward  and  turned  a  cir- 
cle or  two,  and  then  feeling  that  he 
had  got  the  hang  of  it  and  wondering 
why  he  had  never  cared  to  run  one 
before,  so  fascinating  it  seemed,  he 
let  her  go  straight  ahead  and  they 
soon  left  the  station  and  Patrick  be- 
hind them. 

Tom  returned  to  something  that 
was  uppermost  in  his  mind. 

"Do  you  know  it  seems  funny  my 
calling  you  Esther  at  the  start  this 
way?" 

"Why  funny?  Esther  is  my  name. 
It  would  have  been  funny  if  you  had 
called  me  Vashti.  But  I  must  say  I 
didn't  expect  from  what  I  had  heard 
of  you  that  you  would  do  it  until  you 
had  been  here  several  days." 

"Why,  what  had  you  heard  of  me," 
said  Tom,  interested  in  a  moment. 

"Why,  you  know  you're  awfully 
shy." 

"You're  the  first  one  who  ever 
dared  tell  me  so  to  my  face,"  said 
Tom,  laughing.  "Was  it  shyness 
that  made  me  call  you  Esther  at  the 
drop  of  the  hat?  You  know  in  books 
a  fellow  doesn't  call  a  girl  Esther,  or 
whatever  her  name  is,  until  he's 
known  her  a  long  time  and  perhaps 
proposed  to  her  once  or  twice,  and 
then  when  she  accepts  him  he  says, 
'  Miss  Thingumbob  —  er  —  Esther, ' 
and  she  starts  and  draws  away  and 
then  her  head  falls  on  his  shoulder 
and — ^the  author  signs  his  name  to  the 
thing." 

Esther  now  felt  that  Tom  did  not 


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561 


need  any  more  thawing  out.  In  fact, 
it  seemed  to  her  that  the  weather  was 
getting  sloppy  and  she  determined  to 
change  his  mood, 

"Don't  be  nonsensical,"  said  she  in 
an  elder  sister  tone.  You  called  me 
Esther  because  Mabel  and  I  have 
been  like  sisters  for.ytars,  ever  since 
we  were  at  Vassar  together — " 

Tom  stared  at  her  and  applied  the 
brake  at  the  same  time.  "Who's 
Mabel?"  he  exploded,  as  he  struck 
the  dashboard. 

As  Esther  righted  herself  in  her 
seat  again,  she  said,  referring  to  the 
question  and  not  the  sudden  stop,  "Is 
that  a  Chicago  variety  ?" 

Tom  started  to  answer,  but  the  ma- 
chine tried  to  climb  the  bank  at  that 
minute,  so  he  waited  until  he  had 
gained  control  of  it  and  then  he  said : 

"I  didn't  see  any  joke  or  make  any. 
I  merely  wanted  to  know  who  Mabel 
was  who  has  been  a  sister  to  you  ever 
since  you  left  Vassar.  I  thought  you 
were  a  Wellesley  girl." 

And  now  he  had  to  pass  a  van,  and 
devoted  his  whole  attention  to  keep- 
ing the  machine  on  a  straight  course. 
But  he  had  noticed  that  Esther  had 
not  yet  screamed  at  any  of  his  driving 
vagaries,  and  he  felt  that  whether  she 
hailed  from  Vassar  or  Wellesley  was 
immaterial — she  was  about  as  near 
right  as  any  woman  he  had  ever  met, 
and  he  was  glad  that  he  had  ac- 
cepted Archie's  invitation  to  the 
house  party. 

For  a  few  minutes  nothing  was 
said.  The  road  was  straight  and 
free  from  vehicles,  and  he  went  at  a 
rate  that  caused  them  both  to  take 
their  breath  in  gasps.  This  was  cer- 
tainly an  exhilarating   sport   with  a 


pretty  girl  at  your  side  who  allowed 
you  to  call  her  by  her  first  name  at 
once,  and  yet  who  was  thoroughly 
feminine  and  womanly. 

It  was  Esther  who  spoke  first. 
"Isn't  this  delightful?"  said  she. 
"But  don't  you  think  we'd  better  be 
going  back  to  the  house?" 

"Goodness,"  said  Tom,  putting  on 
the  brake,  but  this  time  remembering 
to  apply  it  with  circumspection. 
"Am  I  twisted  in  the  points  of  the 
compass?  I  thought  I  was  going  to 
Raven  Crest  as  fast  as  I  could." 

Esther  looked  at  Tom  in  astonish- 
ment. "I  dare  say  you  are.  I  be- 
lieve Raven  Crest  is  straight  ahead, 
but  I  don't  quite  see  what  Raven 
Crest  has  to  do  with  you  or  me.  I 
am  not  acquainted  with  any  million- 
aires, and  I  don't  believe  you  are 
either,  from  Mabel's  accounts." 

"There's  Mabel  again,"  said  Tom. 
"You  tell  Mabel  when  you  see  her 
that  while  I  don't  think  there  is  any 
particular  virtue  in  either  knowing  or 
being  a  millionaire,  that  I  don't  feel 
like  cutting  Archie  just  because  he 
has  several  millions,  because  he  might 
cut  me  for  the  same  reason.  It  isn't 
my  fault  that  I'm  a  millionaire,  you 
know.  I  didn't  get  the  money  my- 
self. It  was  the  governor  that  did  it, 
and  he's  made  me  learn  a  trade,  be- 
cause he  thinks  I  may  drop  what  he 
picked  up." 

What  was  the  man  talking  about? 
Esther  began  to  wonder  whether 
Mabel's  brother  was  quite  right,  for 
there  was  certainly  neither  htmior  nor 
sense  in  what  he  was  saying. 

But  before  she  could  question  him 
the  machine  began  to  "vibrate." 
Whether  Tom  felt  that  he  had  learned 


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A  MAN,   A  MAID  AND   A  MOTOR 


all  its  curves  and  could  afford  to  be 
careless  or  not  will  never  be  known, 
but  it  is  a  fact  that  it  now  be- 
gan to  zigzag  in  a  manner  highly 
alarming. 

But  Esther,  who  had  absolute  faith 
in  Tom's  ability  to  manage  the  thing, 
even  if  he  was  talking  nonsense,  sim- 
ply gripped  the  seat  and  went  on  talk- 
ing. 

"Tom  Maxwell,  what  are  you  talk- 
ing about?" 

Tom  held  the  ma9hine  to  the  middle 
of  the  road  for  several  rods  and 
breathing  a  sigh  of  relief,  he  said, 
"Esther  Merle,  what  do  you  mean  by 
calling  me  Tom  Maxwell?" 

A  suspicion  of  the  truth  passed 
over  Esther  Hathome's  brain.  She 
remembered  to  have  heard  of  an 
eccentric  young  woman  named  Esther 
who  was  spending  the  holidays  at 
Raven  Crest.  Was  it  possible  that 
this  handsome,  blonde  athlete  was 
not  Tom  Maxwell  at  all,  but  another 
Tom?" 

"I'm  Esther  Hathorne,  Mabel  Max- 
well's friend.  Are  you  Tom  Max- 
well?" 

"Lord,  no !  I'm  Tom  Hardin.  Tom 
Maxwell  is  in  Chicago.    I  knew — " 

What  he  knew  he  never  said,  for  at 
this  juncture  he  heard  the  deep  horn 
of  a  red  racer  that  was  coming  up  be- 
hind him,  and  he  instantly  began  to 
wobble  again,  and  just  before  the  rac- 
ing machine  had  a  chance  to  nm  him 
down,  he  chose  another  accident  by 
running  up  the  bank  and  overturning 
the  machine. 

With  the  rapidity  of  lightning  the 
thought  came  over  him  that  he  had 
killed  an  utter  stranger,  and  he 
wished  it  had  been  the  real  Esther, 


for  he  was  in  love  with  the  pretty  girl 
whom  he  had  involved  in  such  a 
vehicular  tangle. 

But  while  he  was  opening  his  eyes 
and  squirming  out  from  beneath  the 
wreckage,  a  scared  voice  at  his  side 
said: — 

"Are  you  hurt,  Mr.  Hardin?" 

"Thank  God,  you  aren't,"  said  he, 
rising  feebly  to  his  feet.  "I  guess 
I'm  all  right—" 

And  then  the  driver  of  the  red 
racer,  who  had  stopped  as  soon  as  he 
saw  the  accident,  broke  in  with — 

"Tom  Hardin,  what  are  you  doing 
in  this  part  of  the  country  in  an  auto- 
mobile? I  expected  you  in  a  train. 
Are  you  hurt?" 

"Hello,  Archie.  Let  me  present 
you  to  Miss  Hathorne.  I  was  see- 
ing her  home.  I  think  I've  broken 
my  little  finger,  but,  thank  God, 
she's  unhurt.  If  you'll  give  her  a 
lift—" 

At  this  point  the  two  broken  ribs 
that  Tom  had  neglected  to  speak 
about  caused  him  to  faint  with  pain, 
and  Archie  and  his  man  lifted  him 
into  the  racer,  and  then  he  helped 
Miss  Hathorne  to  a  seat,  and  the 
Maxwell  ruin  was  left  by  the  roadside 
for  horsemen  to  gloat  over  as  they 
drove  past 

Mr.  MacQuoid  took  Miss  Hathorne 
home  to  a  worrying  household,  and 
then  kept  on  to  Raven  Crest  with 
Tom. 

As  for  Esther,  she  had  no  sooner 
told  her  story  to  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Max- 
well and  Jack  and  Mabel,  than 
brother  Tom  arrived  in  a  hack,  and 
she  had  to  tell  it  all  over  again,  and 
he  listened  in  a  strangely  bashful  way. 
She  wondered  as  she  talked  how  a 


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SUN-DIALS    OLD   AND    NEW 


563 


man  so  diffident  could  ever  have  suc- 
ceeded in  hustling  Chicago. 

And  she  wondered  still  more  when 
later  in  the  evening  Mrs.  Maxwell 
told  her  that  Tom  was  engaged  to  a 
young  woman  of  Evanston. 

Of  course  Patrick  was  dispatched 
next  day  to  Raven  Crest  to  inquire 
after  Mr.  Hardin,  and  in  the  course 
of  time  Mr.  Hardin  returned  the  com- 
pliment by  coming  in  person  to  in- 
quire after  Miss  Hathorne. 


But  it  was  some  months  before 
Tom  Hardin  felt  in  a  position  to  call 
Miss  Hathorne  Esther. 

Soon  after  that,  however,  he  de- 
cided (with  her  consent)  to  change 
her  name,  that  is,  her  surname. 

"Change  the  name  and  not  the  let- 
ter ;  change  her  for  worse  and  not  for 
better,"  said  Jack  Maxwell,  when  he 
heard  the  news.  But  as  he  and  Tom 
had  become  great  chums,  I  do  not 
think  he  meant  it. 


T 


SuN-DiAL  Made  for  an  American  Garden 
BY  L.  Castella,  London 

Sun-Dials  Old  and  New 

By  Alice  Morse  Earle 


m 


HERE  has  been  no  man  in 
American  history,  nor,  in- 
deed, any   figure  of  note 
the     history     of     any     country, 


who  knew  better  than  did  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  the  power  of  sym- 
bolism in  literature  and  in  Life.  He 
had  in  English  speech  no  rival  in  the 

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564 


SUN-DIALS    OLD    AND    NiW 


Turk's  Head  Dial  at  Penshurst 

employment  of  significant  figures  of 
rhetoric  as  a  light-giving  aid  to  ex- 
pression, both  in  conversation  and 
composition.  To  him  every  word, 
phrase,  or  picture  used  to  illustrate  his 
homely  anecdotes,  his  wise  saws,  and 
terse  maxims  and  homilies,  must  have 
a  value,  a  significance  far  beyond  the 
evident,  the  every-day  presentation : 
he  thus  made  them  Emblems— em- 
blems in  the  old  classical  Shakespe- 
rian  meaning.  They  thus  had  the 
never-ceasing  charm  of  mystery  and 
therefrom  came  not  only  the  charm 
but  the  value,  the  lesson,  and  I  be- 


lieve    the     everlasting     life     of   his 
aphorisms. 

When,  therefore,  there  fell  to 
Franklin,  with  manifold  other  political 
and  patriotic  duties  in  forming  and 
launching  the  new  Ship  of  State, 
that  of  shaping  the  currency  of 
the  new  nation,  this  love  of 
emblems  naturally  showed  itself, 
and  he,  with  the  Committee  in 
charge,  chose  as  a  design  both  for 
the  coins  of  silver,  gold  and  copper, 
and  the  dingy  paper  notes,  a  device 
of  a  sun-dial;  a  simply-shaped  hori- 
zontal sun-dial,  with  the  word  Fugio 
in  capitals.  This  third-of-a-doUar 
note  of  1776  was  ever  after  known 
as  the  Fugio  or  Franklin  Xote:  the 
dollar  was  the  Fuglo  Dollar,  and  the 
cent  the  Fugio  or  Franklin  Cent.  And 
this  currency  displayed  clearly  an- 
other motto,  one  which  at  first  sight 
would  seem,  as  the  monetary  expres- 
sion of  what  was  in  intent  even  then  a 
great  and  dignified  nation,  an  unnec- 
cessarily  ungracious,  a  brusque,  a 
boorish  motto,  namely:  A  find  Your 
Business. 

But  this  curtness,  this  lack  of  ele- 
gance, of  suavity,  of  grace,  was  just 
what  Franklin  wished.  The  coin- 
motto  meant  something.  There  was 
no  nonsense  about  it.  Jt  spoke  its 
meaning  to  all  who  could  read,  while 
the  design  spoke  to  many  who  could 
not  read.  There  were  no  stately- 
sounding  words  of  Greek  or  Latin, 
graceful,  certainly,  to  the  ear  of  men 
of  letters ;  there  were  only  three  words 
of  simple  English  speech — fitted  for 
freemen  who  might  be,  as  Lincoln 
said,  '^illiterate  but  not  ignorant.*' 
These  three  v/ords  told  in  no  uncer- 
tain voice,  not  the  value  of  the  coin, 
but  the  value  of  Time;  they  taught 

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SUN-DIALS    OLD    AND    NEW  565 

diligence,  assiduity  and  thrift;  and  in  struments  that  mark  the  passing  of 

apparently  undignified  phrasing  they  Time.    The  sun-dial's  message  to  man 

taught  the  dignity  which  comes  from  is  one  of  absolute  simpHcity;  I-amb 

reserve,  fron;  a  lack  of  meddlesome  says,  "It  speaks  of  moderate  labours, 

curiosity  and  interference,  the  dignity  of  pleasures  not  protracted  after  sun- 

of  minding  your  business.  set,  of  temperance  and  good  hours.*' 

I  suspect    that    Frankh'n    felt    the  ,And  how  profound  is  its  past.     Since 

charm  and  sentitnent  of  the  sun-dial ;  h'ght  and  motion  first  began,  since  the 


Pillar-Dials  in  Market-Place,  Carlisle, 
England 

the  charm  so  poetically  worded  by  fourth  day  of  the  creation,  when  there 
Charles  Lamb  that  all  other  words  of  were  lights  in  the  firmament  of 
praise  seem  tame  indeed.  Their  heaven,  since  there  was  sunHght,  and 
charm  lay  in  simplicity  of  outline  and  a  moving  shadow — there  was  a  sun- 
directness   of  utility;   in   the   dignity  dial. 

of  their   silent  and   accurate  perfec-  The  presence  of  the  sun-dial  upon 

tion;  and  they  had  a  special   magic  the    United    States    coinage    brings 

which  is  common  to  all  deeds  and  in-  many  pleasant  side-thoughts.     These 


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Obelisk-Shaped  Dial  at  Kelburn  Cattle,  Scotland 


coins  and  paper  money  were  made  in 
Philadelphia :  and  Philadelphia  and  its 
vicinity  has  ever  seen  more  sun-dials 
than  other  parts  of  the  United  States. 

A  few  of  these  old  dials  still  linger 
in  the  surroundings  of  Philadelphia. 
One  is  in  the  yard  of  the  Friends' 
School;  another  in  the  yard  of  a 
Friends'  Meeting  House  in  German- 
town.  The  latter  is  a  perfectly  cal- 
culated instrument  made  in  London 
in  1770.  It  bears  the  noblest  of  all 
dial-mottoes,  "My  days  are  as  a  shad- 
ow, and  there  is  none  abiding." 

Another  ancient  dial  is  in  the  Gar- 
den of  the  Logan  House,  "Stenton" 
in  Germantown.  It  is  now  the  home 
of  the  Society  of  Colonial  Dames,  and 
the  dial  was  given  to  the  Society  by 
Horace  J.  Smith,  Esq.,  of  German- 
town,  a  lineal  descendant  of  the  Logan 
who  was  the  founder  of  the  house. 
This  dial  bears,  to  the  surprise  of 
nearly  all  who  first  see  it,  the  words, 
566 


"Wc  must,"  as  a  motto.  They  are 
simply  a  replica  of  the  two-cen- 
tury old  joke,  We  must — dial — 
that  is,  die-all.  This  is  found 
on  EngHsh  churches,  banks  and 
dwelling  houses.  It  has  an  ac- 
companying jocosity  in  a  turn  on  the 
word  gnomon.  Time  waits  for — gno- 
mon— that  is,  no  man.  These  two 
constitute  nearly  all  the  sun-dial's  wit. 
The  mottoes  are  in  general  severely 
simpile,  and  often  solemn. 

Another  fine  dial  is  here  shown, 
which  stands  in  the  grounds  of  the 
Lippincott  House.  Its  date  is  un- 
known, but  certainly  it  is  a  hundred 
years  old. 

A  beautiful  modern  dial  is  in  the 
grounds  of  Horace  J.  Smith  (see 
frontispiece).  It  is  the  work  of  a 
French  artist,  and  the  thought  and 
execution  are  both  fine.  A  seated  fe- 
male figure,  musing,  holds  the  gno- 
mon in  her  fingers.     The  design  of 


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SUN-DIALS    OLD    AND    NEW 


567 


the  pillar  is  also  good.     Figures  are 
not  at  all  common  upon  dials;  one 
conventional  form  had  a  certain  popu- 
larity in  England,  that  of  a  kneeling 
negro,   known  as   The    Moor.     This 
was    usually    cast    in    lead.     Artistic 
lead-work,  in  the  form  of  great  vases, 
pedestals,  statues,  sun-dials,  etc.,  were 
a    beautiful    adornment    of    English 
gardens,     but 
were   never 
seen   here. 
Another  d  e  - 
sign,     more 
pretent  i  o  u  s, 
of    three  wo- 
men's figures, 
was  named  the 
Fates;  the 
Tliree  Graces; 
Mo  r  n  i  n  g, 
Noon,  and 
Night.     The 
Turk's     Head 
Dial,  at  Pens- 
hurst,    the 
home    of    Sir 
Philip  Sidney, 
is   of   great 
historic  inter- 
est.    These 
various  forms 
of  the  hori- 
zon tal-faced 

garden  -  d  i  al  Corbel-Dial  at 

are    the    only 

generally  known  dials  in  America,  but 
there  are  many  other  forms. 

A  favorite  and  suitable  position  for 
sun-dials  in  the  seventeenth  and  eigh- 
teen centuries  was  upon  the  market 
crosses  and  market  pillars,  which 
formed  such  a  frequent  and  dignified 
adornment  of  English  towns.  Nearly 
all  of  the  dials  have  disappeared  from 


these  market  crosses.  Occasionally  one 
such  as  the  dial    at    Carlisle    (here 
shown),  has  been  carefully  preserved. 
Similar  blocks  of  stone,  With  dials  on 
three  faces  and  an  inscription  on  the 
fourth,    were    mounted    on    pillars, 
which  often  were  the  stumps  of  old 
crosses  which  had  been  pulled  down 
in  the  times  of  ultra  Protestant  relig- 
ious     riots 
when  the  very 
word     cross 
was  an  abom- 
ination. 

When  the 
Puritans  d  e- 
stroyed  these 
crosses  s  u  n- 
dials  were  at 
the  height  of 
their  popular- 
ity, and  it  was 
indeed  natu- 
r  a  1  that 
blocks  of  di- 
a  1  s  s  h  o  ul  d 
take  the  place 
of  the  hated 
emblem.  At 
Steeple  Ash- 
ton  in  Wilt- 
shire, a  c  o  1- 
u  m  n  with 
four  vertical 
Allva,  Scotland  dials       stands 

on  the  steps 
of  the  old  Cross.  At  Culmorden, 
Gloucestershire,  an  Early  English 
shaft  has  a  dial  block.  At  Martock 
the  column  and  dials  are  on  the 
base  of  an  old  cross.  Chichester 
Cross,  which  now  has  a  clock,  origi- 
nally had  four  dials;  so  did  Taunton 
Cross.  The  Market  Cross  at  Wood- 
stock shows  a  stone  pillar  bearing  a 


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o 

c/) 


U 


O 


9 


568 

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The  Children's  Plaything 


dial;  the  house  is   built  around   the 
pillar. 

The  study  of  the  sun-dials  of  Scot- 
land is  most  interesting.  Not  only 
did  the  use  of  sun-dials  continue  there 
in  the  gardens  and  on  the  walls  of  cas- 
tle and  cottage,  of  church  and  manse, 
of  public  buildings,  such  as  hospitals, 
and  tollbooths  and  on  those  prides  of 
the  country  side  — bridges — but 
there  also  existed  in  Scotland  unusual 


forms  of  sun-dials  scarcely  seen  else- 
where in  the  world.  For  instance, 
there  would  be  found  in  England  and 
on  the  continent  vertical  dials  affixed 
upon  pillar-blocks  or  on  the  gables 
or  porches  of  houses,  but  they  were 
ever  simple  in  form,  flat  to  the  wall. 
In  Scotland,  they  might  be  canted 
out  a  bit  to  face  the  exact  points  of 
the  compass;  they  might  be  set  in 
lich-gates,  or  as  the  finial  of  a  turret, 


569 


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Church  of  Santa  Maria  Novella,  with  Dial  of  Cosmo  Medici,  iS72 


570 

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Sun-Dial  Designed  by  Sir  Christopher  Wren,  1653.  Door  of  Library,  All 
Souls'  College,  Oxford 


or  upon  the  two  faces  of  a  corner  or 
upon  a  corbel,  all  of  which  settings 
were  scarce  known  in  England.  All 
these  placings  made  the  sun-dial  of 
much  importance  as  a  part  of  the 
scheme  of  decoration.  On  Heriot's 
Hospital,  for  instance  (name  and 
building  so  familiar  to  us  in  the  pages 
of  Scott),  there  are  a  succession  of 
eleven  richly  carved  corbels  with  sun- 
dials, with  curiously  decorated  faces 
and  odd-shaped  gnomons.  These  were 
made  in  1612  and  almost  form  a  class 
in  architecture.  A  simpler  corbel- 
dial  at  AUva,  Scotland,  is  here  shown. 
This    ancient    corbel  with    the    two 


dial-faces  gives  to  any  thoughtful  on- 
looker, be  he  architect  or  layman, 
a  'suggestion  for  decoration  in 
architecture  which  might  well  be 
adopted  upon  some  of  our  public 
buildings,  o!ir  new  churches.  We 
have  in  America  a  few  vertical  dials 
on  our  city  walls.  In  Utica,  New 
York,  a  fine  bronze  arm  and  spear 
form  the  gnomon  of  an  unusual  dial. 
On  Brooklyn  Heights  the  cast  bronze 
gnomon  of  a  fine  triangular  dial  is 
in  the  gable  of  a  house  extension  of 
unusual  design  and  beauty  for  the  rear 
of  a  citv  home. 

In    garden-dials    Scotland    showed 

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Oldest  English  Sun-Dial  Monolith,  Bencastle  Churchyard 


.c;Tcat  eccentricity.  The  oldest  and 
least  explicable  dial  is  the  one  known 
as  lectern-headed.  It  is  one  of  the  ob- 
jects of  dignity  which  exist  in  ample 
examples  in  civilized  countries,  but 
have  no  more  recorded  history,  no 
more  trace  of  their  invention,  their 
shaping,  than  have  the  totem  poles  of 
savages.  There  was  a  curious  math- 
ametical  and  astronomical  instrument 
sliown  in  Apian's  Book  of  Instru- 
ments, 1533,  and  known  as  the  Tor- 
quetum  of  Apian.  It  told  the  hour 
of  the  day  and  night  from  any  visible 
star  or  the  sun  or  moon.  The  shape 
of  this  Torquetum  is  much  like  the 
head  of  these  lectern-headed  dials.  A 
hint  of  the  way  in  which  they  may 
have  become  well  known  in  Scotland 
is  shoivn  by  the  presence  of  this  Tor- 
572 


quetum  among  the  instruments  repre- 
sented in  Holbein's  masterpiece,  his 
"Ambassadors." 

Those  who  know  the  absolute  pas- 
sion  which   the  learned   Englishmen 
and  Scotchmen  of  the   sixteenth    and 
seventeenth    centuries    had     for    the 
study  of  astronomy  and  ever>'thing 
connected  with  it,  and  who  know  also 
Holbein's  influence,  his  study  of  such 
subjects  and  of  such  instruments,  in 
fact,  his  making  of  sun-dials,  can  read 
between  the  lines.    Scotch  architecture 
of    those    dates    was    influenced   by 
styles  from  Germany   and    the    Low 
Countries;   and   the   sun-dial   shapes 
may    have    come   direct    from    these 
countries     as     well     as     have     been 
adapted     from     those     of     Holbein 
and    Kratzer    in    Germany.      What- 


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SUN-DIALS    OLD   AND    NEW 


573 


ever  means  shaped  the  end,  the 
Scotch  went  in  that  end  far  be- 
yond the  English  or  the  Gennans  in 
the  perfection  and  richness  of  their 
dials,  and  especially  in  these  lectern- 
headed  dials,  which  indeed  are  found 
only  in  Great  Britain  with  one  excep- 
tion, a  splendid  marble  sun-dial  with 
one  hundred  and  fifty  dial-faces  at 
Ruen  Retiro  near  Malaga,  Spain.  The 
splendid  examples  of  Woodhouselee, 
at  Ruchlaw,  dated  663,  at  Skibo 
Castle,  at  Dundas  Castle,  are  beyond 


his  monument  by  Lord  Timothy  Dex- 
ter of  Newburyport. 

The  obelisk-shaped  dial  is  better  ex- 
plained by  an  illustration  than  words. 
This  one  at  Xclburn  House  is  set  in  a 
fountain  basin  of  water,  and  is  an  ex- 
cellent example.  It  is  eight  and  one- 
half  feet  high,  and  shows  the  curious 
octagonal  bulge  in  the  middle  of  the 
square  shaft  which  gives  opportu- 
nity for  unusual  dial  faces,  such  as  re- 
clining and  proclining  dials.  Above 
the  bulge  the  shaft  at  once  tapers  oflf 


Sun-Dial  at  Stonyhurst 


anything  ever  known  in  England. 
The  Dundas  dial  is  set  above  a  foun- 
tain ;  it  was  made  in  1623  by  Sir  Wal- 
ter Dundas,  according  to  its  inscrip- 
tion, "as  an  ornament  to  his  country 
and  his  family,  sacred  to  the  memory 
of  himself  and  as  a  future  memorial 
of  his  posterity,  as  also  an  amusing 
recreation  for  himself,  friends  and 
guests."  I  think  this  is  the  only  mon- 
ument I  ever  saw  openly  marked  by  a 
man  as  *'sacred  to  the  memory  of 
himself,"  save  a  similar   wording   on 


to  the  finial.  The  faces  of  the  shaft 
have  compartments  and  sinkings  of 
various  shapes,  heart-shaped,  triangu- 
lar, cup -shaped ;  sometimes  with  metal 
or  stone  gnomons ;  othertimes  the 
sharp  edge  of  the  stone  casts  the 
shadow.  When  these  sinkings  were 
ne^vly  cut,  with  clean  edges,  I  pre- 
sume they  were  of  value  as  time  tell- 
ers, but  often  the  dial  was  of  sand- 
stone and  the  sharp  edge  was  speedily 
blunted  by  stress  of  weather. 

The   lectern -headed   dial   is   ahnost 


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Cross  Dial  with  Sphinx,  Port  Sunlight,  England 


574 

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SUN-DIALS    OLD    AND    NEW 


sii 


never  copied  to-day,  and  the  obelisk 
rarely.  Mr.  E.  Erskine  Scott  erected 
a  satisfactof}'  dial  which  was  a  modi- 
fication of  the  obelisk,  but  he  had  a 
second  dial  copied  from  another 
Scottish  type,  the  facet-headed  dial, 
which  was  still  more  beautiful.  This 
faceted  block  might  set  upon  a  pillar 
with  a  small  pivot,  or  upon  another 
block.  One  of  great  beauty  at  Mount 
Melville,  Scotland,  is  here  given. 

The  most  beautiful  of  all  sun-dials 
in  the  world,  that  at  Glamis  Castle — 
place  of  song,  romance  and  story — is 
here  given,  with  a  child's  little  wagon 
standing  on  its  historic  step. 

Children  dearly  love  a  sun-dial.  I 
have  seen  them  play  for  hours  by  the 
dial's  side.  Two  caught  thus  in  play 
are  given  on  page  569. 

Throughout  France  and  Italy  sun- 
dials abound.  The  church  of  Ste. 
Maria  Novella  in  Florence  is  here 
shown,  with  the  dial  of  Cosmo  di 
Medici.  This  dial  was  made  by  a 
Dontinican  brother.  This 
exquisite  church  was  called  | 
'The  Bride,"  by  Michael 
Angelo  on  account  of  its 
great  beauty.  The  mot- 
toes on  the  Continental 
dials  are  most  interesting 
and  most  beautiful  i  n 
thought.  As  nearly  all  are 
old  they  show  the  ingenious 
misspelling  which  prevailed 
in  all  languages  until  with- 
in a  hundred  years.  The 
French  and  Latin  mottoes, 
even  in  France  and  Italy, 
ar«  surprisingly  misspelled. 
As  collections  of  thousands 
of  sun-dial  mottoes  have 
been  gathered,  it  would  be 
useless     to     dwell     upon  Vertical 


them  here.  They  afford  a  won- 
derful opportunity  to  deliver  a  sen- 
tentious lesson  or  warning.  Brevity 
is  one  of  their  virtues,  but  few  words 
may  speak  much.  Nearly  all  our 
great  poets  have  tried  their  hand  at 
n^btto  making.  But  the  best  mottoes 
have  been  found  in  lines  which  were 
never  intended  for  a  dial.  Fhero  are 
hundreds  of  Latin  mottoes,  but  good, 
terse  English  mottoes  are  best  of  all. 
Nearly  all  dial  mottoes  are  serious — 
jests  seem  out  of  place,  and  many  are 
very  gloomy — which  is  unnecessary. 
After  revolving-  scores  of  mottoes  in 
the  mind,  after  searching  the  Bible. 
Shakespeare,  and  the  poet.s,  for  new 
lines;  after  inventing  a  motto  or  two 
of  one's  own,  the  dial-owner  gener- 
ally turns  back  to  some  old  favorite, 
such  as  *T  mark  only  sunny  hours," 
and  is  satisfied.  A  dial-motto  seems 
to  ofier  an  example  of  a  saying  that 
may  be  read  for  centuries,  and  on 
every  side,  and  yet  not  be  hackneyed. 


Dial  on  Church  Porch,  Eyam^ngland 

Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


576 


SUN-DIALS    OLD   AND    NEW 


Shepherd's  Dial,  Made  by  Spanish  Peasants 

The  oldest  English  sun-dial  is  the 
monolith  in  the  churchyard  at  l^»en- 
castle.  It  has  also  the  oldest  carved 
inscription  in  England.  Nearly  all 
the  English  colleges  have  sun-dials. 
At  the  Universities  of  Oxford  and 
Cambridge,  the  various  college  dials 
rival  each  other  in  beauty.  Centuries 
ago  dials  were  set  in  flowers  or  grow- 
ing box  on  the  turf  in  front  of  the 
college  buildings.  These  have  van- 
ished. The  ancient  dial  made  by  Sir 
(Christopher  Wren  in  1653  still  is  set 
over  the  door  of  the  Library  of  All 
Souls'  College,  Oxford,  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  acompanying  illustration. 
The  sun-dial  at  Stonyhurst  is  also 
given. 

A  churchdoor  was  ever  a  favorite 
and  a  suitable  place  for  a  dial.  We 
are  recognizing  this  in  America,  and 


many  have  been  thus  set 
within  a  few  years.  A  ver- 
tical dial  of  much  beauty  is 
here  shown,  which  graces 
the  church-porch  at  Eyam, 
England,  the  church  w^here 
preached  the  brave  Mompes- 
son,  who  stayed  the  progress 
of  the  plague  in  England,  in 
the  seventeenth  century. 

A  cross-shaped  dial  is 
suited  to  a  churchyard,  and 
many  may  be  found  in  church- 
yards and  burial  grounds  in 
England.  The  union  of  cross 
and  sphinx  is  most  unusual. 
One  is  given  which  stands  at 
that  interesting  place,  Port 
Sunlight,  England.  The 
pedestal  of  this  is  ill-suited, 
but  the  sphinx  is  certainly  a 
most  appropriate  design  for 
a  sun-dial. 
All  the  great  English  mathemati- 
cians and  architects  and  many  artists 
made  sun-dials.  Dials  made  by  Sir 
Isaac  Newton  still  exist.     The  views 


Universal  Ring-Dial,  Owned  by  Author 

Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


Sun-Dials  on  Ruins  of  Wingfield  Manor 
House,  Derbyshire,  England,  1678 


of  VVingffield  Manor  are  here  gfiven 
with  part  of  the  dial  set  up  by  a  famous 
mathematician,  named  HaUon,  in  the 
year  1678.  The  gfnomon  can  be  seen 
over  the  open  window  of  the  room 
which  sheltered  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots. 
The  largest  sun-dial  in  the  world 
was  made  in  India  by  a  Rajah  who 
was  devoted  to  mathematics ;  the 
smallest  is  a  tiny,  portable  dial  set  in 
a  ring.  Portable  dials  were  for  a 
time  in  constant  use.  When  shut  up 
in  ivory  or  silver  cases,  they  were  no 
more  cumbersome  than  a  watch.  The 
ring-dial  was  a  favorite  form.  An 
ancient  one  about  two  inches  in  diame- 
ter is  given  here.  The  only  European 
people  who  use  a  portable  dial  to-day 
are  the  peasant  folk  who  serve  as 
shepherds  for  the  flocks  which  graze 
on  the  hills    and    fields    which    divide 


Spain  from  France.  They  still  make 
and  use  a  cylindrical  dial  which  is 
mcdireval,  and  was  made  long  before 
Shakespeare's  shepherd  sat  ''carving 
out  dials  quaintly.'*  Chaucer  wrote 
an  excellent  essay  upon  them.  One  is 
here  shown  which  was  made  by  a 
Spanish  shepherd.  It  is  of  close- 
grained  white  wood  numbered  in  red 
and  black  ink,  and  is  an  excellent 
time-keeper.  The  shepherds  appear 
to  have  no  astronomical  or  mathemati- 
cal knowledge  adequate  to  the  com- 
prehension of  this  dial.  It  is  simply 
a  heredity  capacity  which  enables 
them  to  carve  them  out  so  in- 
geniously and  accurately.  Another 
portable  card-dial  was  made  of  a  piece 
of  strong  cardboard,  with  a  weighted 
string  as  the  gnomon.  I  have  bought 
these  this  vear  in  America. 


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The  Saving  of  the  Choir 


By  Richard  Bradford 


c 


HURCH  music  ain't  much 
on  week  days,  except  at 
sociables  and  funerals." 
Pliny  let  the  lever  settle 
wearily  to  a  halt,  and  kept  his  eye  on 
the  marker  that  indicated  the  bellows 
to  be  full.  Above,  dim  shadows  fash- 
ioned by  the  organ  pipes  played 
gloomily  on  the  wall  of  his  nar- 
row station,  and  closer,  the  organ 
chest  creaked  and  wheezed  in 
an  endeavor  to  gather  into  har- 
mony the  strains  of  the  choir.  From 
the  point  of  view,  the  philosophy  of 
the  remark  was  hardly  amiss,  for 
Pliny  was  "blowing"  for  the  Friday 
rehearsal.  Pliny's  good  nature  was, 
indeed,  the  salvation  of  East  Leeds, 
and  usually  it  was  behind  the  scenes. 
That  was  why  he  was  "blowing"  now 
for  the  choir.  Through  the  door  he 
could  see  them,  as  he  worked  the 
lever.  There,  at  the  end  of  the  hair- 
cloth sofa,  sat  Charles  Johnson, 
swaying  slightly  as  his  tenor  bore  the 
air  of  the  Doxology;  next  him  were 
Eva  Martin  and  Miss  Grey,  still 
wearing  their  wraps  and  singing 
from  the  "Church  Harmonies"  held 
in  common,  and  Luther  Hartley, 
choir  master  of  the  parish  by  length 
of  service. 

The  lever  hesitated  before  the  up- 
ward stroke,  as  if  anticipating  the 
closing  strain,  "Praise  Him  all  peoples 
in  your  song."  There  was  a  moment 
of  pause.  Back  in  the  Meeting 
House,  a  nail  snapped  in  the  frosty 

578 


air;  the  yellowish  radiance  of  the 
choir  lamps  flickered,  and  a  shiver 
passed  over  the  frame  of  the  Meet- 
ing House. 

Pliny  put  his  hands  in  his  hip  pock- 
ets to  ease  the  muscles  of  his  back  in 
the  moment  of  rest.  It  was  clear  that 
the  tune  had  gone  awry,  for  Luther 
looked  up  sharply  from  the  hymn 
book  which  he  held  in  a  tight  grasp. 

*'Mis*  Austin,  if  you'll  start  that 
measure  again,  so  as  we  can  get  the 
pitch,"  he  said  nervously,  turning  to 
the  organ. 

"Now,  Miss  Martin,  seem's  though 
you'd  ought  to  drop  down  a  tone,  and 
you,  Charlie  Johnson,  come  in  slow 
on  the  'blessin's.'  Pause  and  draw  out 
the  *a-l-r.  Miss  Grey  and  I  will  take 
the  lower  parts.  There, — "  and  he 
hummed  the  air  to  the  time  of  the 
swinging  "Church  Harmonies," — 
"everybody  notice  the  swing  of  it, 
and  be  sure  and  stop  together.  Now, 
Mis'  Austin,  all  right  again." 

Pliny  bent  to  the  lever,  while  the 
organ  once  more  droned  "Old  Hun- 
dred," and  the  tune  filled  the  dim 
^Meeting  House.  There  it  swirled  and 
eddied,  the  soprano  riding  the  ground 
swells  of  the  bass,  as  a  boat  rides 
above  the  rolling  billows. 

"Guess  they  got  it  this  time,"  mut- 
tered Pliny.  And  sure  enough,  Lu- 
ther, after  a  critical  listening,  thought- 
fully closed  his  book.  "We'll  try  it 
over  just  before  meetin',  and  I  guess 
it  will  do,"  he  concluded. 


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THE  SAVING  OF  THE  CHOIR 


579 


When  the  sound  of  grating  run- 
ners told  that  Charles  Johnson  had 
halted  at  the  outer  door  for  the  two 
ladies,  Luther  looked  up  from  the 
neat  pile  of  hymn  books  that  he  had 
been  making  in  the  sofa  comers. 

"Mis'  Austin,"  he  began  abruptly, 
"it's  been  seeming  to  me  that  this 
choir  ain't  singing  as  it  should," 
Luther  turned  to  Pliny,  who  was  pull- 
ing on  his  ulster,  "and  I  don't  believe 
the  fault  is  hard  to  find."  The  good 
man's  voice  rose  with  his  vexation. 

Each  seemed  to  read  the  common 
thought  in  the  awkward  pause  that 
followed  Luther's  words.  In  the 
moment  before  suspicion  is  spoken, 
one  hesitates;  so  here  in  the  moment 
before  the  suspicion  of  all  East 
Leeds  was  given  voice,  the  three 
paused  in  awe.  But  Luther  could 
not  wait  longer. 

"D'you  notice  that  soprano?  Eva 
Martin  ain't  carryin'  it  at  all;  her 
voice  is  sprung.  Now — "  caution 
lowered  his  tone,  "I  ain't  the  one  to 
sow  seeds  of  discord,  but  that  soprano 
has  got  to  be  altered."  Luther's 
clenched  fist  fell  with  the  gesture  of 
decision. 

"Luther,"  said  the  sympathetic 
organist,  "you've  said  what  I've  heard 
more  than  once.  But  you  and  Pliny 
know,"  she  hastened  to  add,  "it 
wouldn't  do  to  speak  to  Eva  Martin 
about  it.  She's  sung  in  the  church 
for  fourteen  years." 

"Yes,  yes,"  broke  in  Luther  im- 
patiently, "I  know  she  has  got  con- 
siderable feeling  about  her  singing. 
But  everybody  in  the  parish  knows 
what  their  feeling  is,  and  far  as  I  can 
see  we've  got  to  have  a  change." 
Luther  abruptly  bound  on  his  muffler, 
and  strode  down  the  aisle. 


"I  guess  the  singing  riled  Luther  a 
little."  Pliny  watched  the  vexed  choir 
master  to  the  door. 

Mrs.  Austin  turned  a  troubled  face. 
'*  Pliny,  I  hope  you  won't  let  none  of 
what  Luther  has  said  get  to  the  Mar- 
tins' ears."     Pliny  promised. 

"And  at  the  same  time,  she  ain't 
so  fresh  a  singer  as  she  was  once. 
You  see  how  it  is.  There's  been 
some  talk,  but  I  don't  know  what 
there  is  to  do  or  say."  Mrs.  Austin 
spoke  with  dejection. 

Pliny  felt  that  it  was  all  true.  He 
had  come  to  know  Miss  Martin ;  and 
in  the  village  this  undercurrent  of 
talk  he  had  felt  at  several  times.  His 
kindly  nature  was  disturbed,  and  his 
sympathy  was  for  both  sides — for  the 
sensitive  maiden  lady  and  for  the  for- 
bearing parish.  And  so  he  thought- 
fully closed  the  organ  case;  extin- 
guished the  lamps  that  sputtered  in 
the  brackets;  shook  down  the  fire  in 
the  vestry;  and  locked  the  door  on 
the  chilly  darkness  within.  Mrs. 
Austin  waited  on  the  granite  step, 
while  he  brought  the  horse  to  the 
door. 

"I  don't  know  where  there's  a  bet- 
ter soul  than  Pliny  Judkins,"  she 
mused.  "He's  real  good  to  come 
down  here  to-night,  seein'  that  he  ain't 
a  regular  member.  I'm  glad  he's 
staying  at  our  house." 

Pliny,  to  say  the  truth,  was  one  of 
those  unattached  characters  that  one 
meets  in  almost  every  village — a  per- 
son that  belongs  to  no  fireside,  and 
yet  to  every  fireside.  Lewis  Martin  re- 
membered the  time,  a  dozen  years  ago, 
when  a  man  came  to  his  door  in  hay- 
ing time,  and  asked  for  work.  And 
because  he  needed  help,  Lewis  took 
him   in.     People   were   uncertain   of 


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THE  SAVING  OF  THE  CHOIR 


Pliny's  native  place;  some  said  he 
came  from  up  North  Parish  way ;  the 
larger  number  accepted  the  fact  that 
he  was  a  part  of  East  Leeds.  He 
ceased  "doing  chores"  a  few  years 
ago,  when  he  took  the  agency  for  a 
washing  machine.  Somehow  New 
England  housewives  saw  the  merit 
of  a  washing  machine,  when  Pliny 
dropped  in  of  a  Monday  morning, 
and  turned  the  wooden  crank  of  his 
machine  till  the  week's  wash  was 
ready  for  the  line.  "He  was  so  ac- 
commodating," they  said  afterward 
as  if  in  excuse  of  the  extravagance, 
"and  the  machine  did  really  work." 
So  the  county  was  gradually  won 
over. 

Pliny  now  wore  a  white  collar  on 
week  days — the  outward  sign  of  pros- 
perity. People  looked  upon  him  as 
a  "likely"  man,  and  said  "he  was 
stoppin'  at  the  Austins'  "  while  he  can- 
vassed Hiram  and  Poland  Village. 
But  Pliny  lost  none  of  his  good 
nature  that  in  more  unprosperous 
days  had  already  won  him  the  respect 
of  East  Leeds. 

"Yes,  Pliny,"  continued  Mrs.  Aus- 
tin, as  the  pung  lurched  in  and  out 
of  the  "thank  ye  marms,"  "I  don't 
suppose  you  can  do  anything  to  save 
the  choir,  but  any  feeling  would  be 
awkward." 

"Well,  Mis'  Austin,  some  one  might 
speak  to  Eva  Martin,  and  I'll  do  it,  if 
you  say." 

"'Twouldn't  do,  Pliny,"  the  good 
lady  answered  in  alarm.  "She  ain't 
been  spoke  to  in  all  the  time  she  has 
sung." 

The  horse  settled  into  that  remi- 
niscent jog  that  was  his  wont  when 
drawing  the  heavy  wagon  home  from 
meeting.     It  was  sacrilege  to  disturb 


his  Sunday  mood,  and  Pliny  let  him 
turn  the  comer  to  the  barn  in  the 
thought  of  an  extra  day's  rest  before 
him. 

Clear  it  was  on  the  next  Sunday 
that  Luther  spoke  the  truth  of  the 
choir.  Mrs.'  Austin  had  cautiously 
approached  several  neighbors,  and 
opinion,  it  was  found,  had  put  its 
finger  on  the  fault.  Nor  were  mat- 
ters improved  on  Easter  Sunday. 
The  choir  sang  twice  on  that  day, 
with  special  music  at  the  morning 
service,  and  again  at  the  Sunday 
School  concert  in  the  evening. 
People  now  said  openly,  "It  wa'n't 
right  to  disturb  the  meeting  so;  she 
ought  to  be  spoke  to."  None,  how- 
ever, volunteered  to  perform  that 
delicate  mission.  Eva  Martin  g^ve 
her  talents  to  the  church,  and  it  was 
no  wise  precedent  to  discourage  such 
service. 

March  winds  yielded  to  the  gentler 
breezes  that  thawed  the  roads,  and 
made  them  troughs  of  mud,  where 
teams  sank  sometimes  axle  deep. 
Then,  as  travel  resumed  its  usual  roll- 
ing course,  feather  beds  appeared  in 
the  dooryards,  basking  in  the  April 
sun.  Men  knew  that  house-cleaning 
was  at  its  height,  and  that  the  bams 
and  fields  were  the  only  respite  from 
dusty  tasks  indoors.  Then  masculine 
importance  had  its  tum,  when  the 
rich  smell  of  the  earth  drew  bags  of 
seed  and  muddy  tools  from  lofts  and 
attics.  Then  East  Leeds  was  glad- 
dest of  the  spring.  Pliny  was  help- 
ing the  Martins  during  the  "heft  of 
seed  time." 

"Women  folks  have  been  too  busy 
to  talk  washing  machines,"  he  said  in 
explanation  of  his  visits  here  and 
there,   "and   I'm   content   to  lend   a 


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THE  SAVING  OF  THE  CHOIR 


581 


hand  in  return  for  my  keep  during 
dull  season/' 

East  Leeds  was  glad  to  have  it  so. 
Pliny  had  prospered  surprisingly  in 
the  introduction  of  his  washing  ma- 
chines. Even  "snug"  Lewis  Martin 
was  moved  to  say,  "he'd  a  mind  to 
give  him  a  start  in  the  creamery  busi- 
ness 'long  with  him,  for  a  good, 
capable  man  wa'n't  to  be  passed  by 
every  day."  There  could  be  no 
harder  won  recognition  of  capability. 

Eva  Martin,  too,  found  it  agree- 
able to  have  a  man  about  the  house 
to  wait  on  her  wishes.  Now  she 
often  sat  on  the  back  porch  with  her 
needle  work,  and  conversed  in  the 
twilight  of  a  spring  evening.  Some- 
times she  forgot  herself  into  thinking 
that  time  had  turned  back  several 
years,  when  people  gaped  as  they 
rode  by  to  see  the  young  man  at  her 
feet,  and  to  build  the  remotest  pos- 
sibility on  his  presence.  She  had  felt 
at  times  that  Pliny  was  especially 
obliging,  but  she  calmed  herself  by 
repeating,  "It's  just  his  way;  he  ain't 
different  from  what  he  is  to  any- 
body." 

Once  Pliny  had  escorted  her  to  a 
tea  given  by  the  "Grey  g^rls"  in 
honor  of  a  visiting  cousin.  The  Grey 
girls  had  long  outlived  their  girlhood, 
but  advancing  years  could  not  out- 
grow the  custom  of  a  name.  She 
had  consented  with  real  pleasure,  put 
on  her  new  gown  and  prettiest  hat 
in  the  thought  that  the  occasion  was 
memorable.  She  liked  to  think  that 
she  was  not  like  the  Grey  girls,  who 
rode  unattended  to  meeting.  There 
was  a  real  archness  in  her  way  as 
Pliny  drove  up  to  the  door,  and  gal- 
lantly helped  her  out.  How  pleas- 
antly, she  remembered,  the  evening 


had  been  spent  in  the  prim  front 
room!  Pliny  had  been  the  life  of 
the  company  with  his  genial  good 
nature.  Thinking  of  that,  she  would 
blush  at  the  thought  of  any  one  keep- 
ing company  with  her.  "Eva  Mar- 
tin," she  would  say,  "you'd  ought  not 
to  be  thinking  of  such  things."  She 
sang  better  for  several  Sundays  after 
the  tea,  and  some  even  thought  that 
the  difficulty  had  solved  itself.  But 
it  was  a  vain  hope,  for  her  voice 
gradually  assumed  the  old  tone,  as 
the  incident  grew  dim  in  the  passing 
weeks. 

But  the  choir  remained  undis- 
turbed long  after  this,  although  the 
leading  spirits  had  decided  that  a 
change  was  imminent.  Luther  Hartley 
had  threatened  the  peace  of  the  next 
parish  meeting.  Alarmed  at  this 
some  had  suggested  in  the  spirit  of 
compromise,  a  reorganization  of  the 
entire  choir,  an  argument  which 
Luther  met  with  effect. 

"It  ain't  needed,"  said  he,  backed 
by  a  large  following. 

Mrs.  Austin  was  driven  to  subter- 
fuges. On  Sundays,  she  pulled  the 
stops  of  the  organ  so  far  that  the 
choir  was  nearly  drowned,  which 
resulted  only  in  deceiving  herself. 
The  good  woman  was  in  mental  dis- 
tress, with  the  parish  meeting  only  a 
week  off  and  Luther  "feelin'  so 
strongly."  The  parish  was  on  the 
threshhold  of  division. 

Thus  all  East  Leeds  was  in  per- 
plexity, one  spring  evening,  as  Pliny 
sat  on  the  porch,  thinking  about  this 
condition  and  Lewis  Martin's  final 
offer  of  the  creamery.  Eva  Martin, 
on  the  inevitable  Friday  evening  was 
starting  for  the  rehearsal. 

"Miss    Martin,"    said    he,  starting 

Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


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THE  SAVING  OF  THE  CHOIR 


from  his  seat,  "I'll  walk  along  with 
you,  if  you  don't  mind;  Tve  got  to  go 
to  the  Johnsons',  and  I'll  step  in  on 
the  way  back."  Miss  Martin  gladly 
accepted  ihe  offer  of  company.  It  was 
a  glorious  spring  evening.  The  sun 
setting  over  Blue  Hill  promised  the 
dawn  ot  another  glad  to-morrow ;  the 
voices  of  the  little  folk  of  the  spring, 
that  sing  in  apple  blossom  time,  came 
up  from  the  meadow  in  a  harmony  of 
joy.  Pliny  walked  on,  breathing  deeply 
the  freshness  of  the  earth. 

"Miss  Martin,"  he  began  abruptly, 
after  they  had  turned  the  comer  of 
the  yard,  "I'm  thinkin'  some  of  mov- 
in'  away." 

"You  ain't,  are  you,  Pliny?  I  don't 
know  how  East  Leeds  could  get 
along  without  you." 

"Yes,  I  have  had  a  good  offer  at  the 
creamery,  and  it  seems  almost  best  to 
quit  livin'  around  as  I  do." 

"You  know  we're  only  too  glad  to 
have  you  at  our  house,"  she  said,  and 
stopped. 

Pliny  looked  up.  "Eva,"  said  he, 
"I  have  been  talking  some  with  your 
father  about  creamery  business,  and 
do  you  suppose,  if  I  got  the  old  Curtis 
place,  I  could  get  any  one  to  run  it? 
Saying  I  took  the  job,  do  you  think 
so?" 

"Why,  Pliny,  there's  lots  of  folks 
you  could  get  to  do  it,"  she  answered 
in  her  eagerness  for  East  Leeds. 


Pliny  took  an  abrupt  turn.  "Eva, 
what  would  you  say,  if  I  asked  you 
about  it?" 

The  last  rays  of  the  sun  peered 
in  over  the  pews  as  the  choir 
took  their  places.  Eva  Martin  looked 
out  over  the  blossoming  trees,  over 
the  green  fields  to  the  hills  be- 
yond, and  sang  for  the  dawning 
of  the  new  day.  Pliny  called  Luther 
aside. 

"Luther,"  he  said,  "I  -fixed  that 
little  matter  of  the  choir  that  you 
spoke  about.  Fact  is,  it's  too  far  to 
come  up  from  the  Curtis  place  even- 
ings for  rehearsals.  Miss  Martin 
don't  feel  as  though  she  could  give 
the  time." 

"Why,  Pliny,  what  do  you  mean?" 
said  Luther,  perplexed.  "Curtis 
place — Curtis  place — ^and  Eva  Mar- 
tin?" 

"Well,  fact  is,"  urged  Pliny,  "Eva 
Martin  has  agreed  to  devote  all  her 
time  to  me,  and  we're  thinking  of 
taking  the  old  Curtis  place  come  hay- 
ing time." 

Luther  grasped  his  hand,  and  with 
face  beaming  turned  to  the  choir. 

"All  right,  again.  Mis*  Austin,  if 
you'll  just  start  the  Doxology." 

And  "Praise  God  from  whom  all 
blessings  flow"  was  wafted  out  in 
harmony  into  the  stillness  of  the 
spring  twilight. 


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A  Witness  to  the  Truth 

Read   at   Andover   Theological    Seminary   at   the   exercises   commemorating 
the  bicentenary  of  the  birth  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 


By  Samuel  Valentine  Cole 


I. 

GOD'S  truth  has  many  voices ;  sun  and  star 
And  mountain  and  the  deep  that  rolls  afar, 
Speak  the  great  language ;  and,  of  mightier  worth, 
The  lips  and  lives  of  Godlike  men  on  earth. 

For  truth  wrought  out  in  human  life  has  power 

Which  no  truth  dse  has — since  man's  natal  hour. 

What  were  the  world  without  the  long,  strong  chain 

Of  faithful  witnesses  whose  heart  and  brain 

Have  throbbed  with  truth  God  gave  them  ?  without  these 

Who,  as  with  hands  that  link  together,  stand 

Reaching  across  the  years  to  that  dear  Hand 

Which  touchefd  blind  eyes  to  sight,  wrote  on  the  sand, 

And  lifted  Peter  from  the  drowning  seas? 

Who,  better  than  through  book  or  hymn  or  creed, 

Draw  down  their  living  line  the  fire  we  need 

Of  life  from  Him  who  is  the  Life  indeed? 

II. 

A  good  man's  work  is  of  his  time  and  place 
Where  Duty  lifts  the  fulness  of  her  face ; 
Translate  it  elsewhere  and  you  do  him  wrong: 
His  life,  his  spirit — what  of  great  and  fair 
And  true  was  in  him — O,  that  doth  belong 
To  all  the  ages  and  dwells  everywhere ! 

And  there  he  stands,  this  nobly-moulded  man; 

You  cannot  miss  him  if  you  turn  and  scan 

The  land's  horizon;  howsoe'er  men  talk, 

He  still  is  of  us ;  no  mere  name ;  a  rock 

The  floods  may  beat  upon  nor  wash  away ; 

Foregatherer  of  the  times;  his  loftier  height 

Flushed  with  the  gleams  of  sweetness  and  of  light 

That  wait  their  fulness  till  some  later  day ; 

An  eagle  spirit  soaring  in  the  sky 

And  mingling  with  the  things  that  cannot  die. 

583 

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584  A   WITNESS   TO  THE   TRUTH 

How  full  of  fire  he  was  and  how  sincere, 
Soldicfr  of  faith  and  conscience  without  fear! 
And  humble  as  the  little  springtime  flower 
Opening  its  heart  out  to  the  Heavenly  Power; 
Poet,  and  dreamer  of  the  things  to  be ; 
A  man  of  Godly  vision ; — such  was  he, 
This  Dante  of  New  England,  who  descried 
The  dread  Inferno  of  man's  sin  and  pride ; 
The  Purgatorio  where  his  eyes  might  trace 
The  Workings  out  and  upward  of  God's  grace; 
And  yet  who  clomb  with  happier  step  the  slope 
Of  man's  aspiring  and  undying  hop€f 
Toward  Paradiso,  there  to  find  his  goal 
At  last — ^the  Blessed  Vision  of  the  Soul  I 

III. 

All  this  Ife  was,  whatever  be  the  name 

He  goes  by  in  the  roll  of  earthly  fame. 

We  judge  him  as  we  would  oursdves  alway 

Be  judged ;  as  Christ  will  judge  the  world  one  day ; 

Not  by  things  done,  however  great  they  be. 

But  by  those  longings  which  immortally 

Outrun  achievement  since  the  world  bcfgan ; 

Yea,  by  the  spirit  in  him ;  that's  the  man. 

What  though  the  vain  world  scoffed  and  paths  g^ew  dim. 

He  had  one  Master  and  he  followed  Him. 

He  wielded  truth  to  mecft  the  ag^p's  stress 

Of  circumstance,  nor  made  it  truth  the  less. 

Truth  is  a  sword  that  flashes,  now  this  way, 

Now  that,  the  single  purpose  to  obey. 

Nay,  truth  is  large ;  no  man  hath  seen  the  whole ; 

Larger  than  words ;  it  brooks  not  the  control 

Of  argument  and  of  distinctions  nice ; 

No  age  or  creed  can  hold  it,  no  device 

Of  speech  or  language ;  ay,  no  syllogism : 

Truth  is  the  sun,  and  reasoning  is  the  prism 

You  lift  before  it ;  whence  the  light  is  thrown 

In  various  colors;  each  man  takes  his  own. 

If  this  man  takes  the  red,  as  you  the  blue. 

Is  yours  the  whole?  and  is  his  truth  not  true? 

Spirit  is  truth,  howe'er  the  colors  fall ; 

The  fact  comes  back  to  spirit  after  all. 

IV. 

Secure,  invincible,  the  man  who  dare 
Obey  his  vision — mark  what  courage  there! — 
Dar€f  take  the  sword  of  his  belief  in  hand. 
Whole-hearted  face  the  world  with  it,  and  stand, 
And  mind  not  sacrifice,  and  count  fame  dross, 
For  truth's  dear  sake,  and  life  and  all  things  loss. 
And  never  dream  of  failure,  never  doubt 
What  issue  when  the  stars  of  God  come  out ! 


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A   WITNESS    TO   THE   TRUTH  585 

And  would  that  we  had  powier  like  him  to  rise 
Clear  of  the  thraldom  of  all  compromise, 
Like  him  whose  feet  on  this  foundation  stood, — 
That  God  is  sovereign  and  that  God  is  goocl- 
Is  such  a  creed  outworn?    And  tell  me,  pray, 
Have  we  no  use  for  it?    Alas  the  day. 
Amid  the  things  that  savor  of  the  sod. 
If  men  forgfet  the  sovereign  rights  of  God- 
The  true  life's  master-word  is  still,  Obey. 

V. 

The  man  of  power  rejoicing  cries,  "I  can ;" 

"I  may,"  the  man  of  pleasure ;  but  wfe  trust. 
And  all  the  World  trusts  with  us,  still  the  man 

Hearing  a  different  voice,  who  says,  "I  must." 

O,  Conscicfnce,  Conscience,  how  we  need  thee  now ! 

Wind,  fire,  and  earthquake  pass;  the  time  abounds 
In  these  great  voices;  but,  O,  where  art  thou? 

Is  thy  voice  lost  amid  life's  grosser  sounds? 

Or  art  thou  fled  across  the  golden  bars 

Of  evening  with  thy  purer  light  to  shincf 
Somewhere  far  off,  beyond  the  quiet  stars. 

Far  off,  and  leave  us  without  guide  or  sign? 

Not  so ;  earth's  towers  and  battlements  decay ; 

Thrones  tremble  and  fall ;  old  sccfptres  lose  control : 
But,  as  God  lives,  thou  livest;  thou  wilt  stay, 

O,  Conscience,  God's  vicegerent  in  the  soul ! 

We  are  thy  tK>ndmen  and  thy  ways  are  good ; 

Thou  art  what  makes  us  greater  than  the  dust 
We  came  from ;  and  still,  howsoe'er  we  would. 

Thy  law  is  ever  on  us  and  we  must. 

VI. 

The  man  who  takes  "an  inward  sweet  delight 

In  God,"  shines  like  a  candle  in  the  night ; 

The  world's  black  shadow  of  care  and  doubt  and  sin 

Is  beaten  backward  by  that  power  within ; 

He  walks  in  freedom ;  neither  time  nor  place 

Can  fetter  such  a  spirit;  in  his  face 

A  light,  not  of  this  earth,  forever  clings* 

For,  when  he  will,  strong  spiritual  wings 

Bear  him  aloft  till  silent  grows  all  strife. 

Silent  the  tumult  and  the  toil  of  life ; 

The  homes  of  men,  far  off,  like  grains  of  sand 

Lie  scattered  along  the  wrinkles  of  the  land, 

All  silent ;  not  a  sound  or  breath  may  rise 

To  mar  the  eternal  harmony  of  those  skies 

Through  which  he  goes,  still  higher,  toward  the  line 

Where  sun  and  moon  have  no  more  need  to  shine; 

And  there,  where  sordid  feet  have  never  trod. 

He  walks  in  joy  the  tablelands  of  God. 


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586  A   WITNESS   TO   THE   TRUTH 

•    VII. 

How  much  he  hath  to  teach  us  even  yet, 
Lest  life  should  kill  us  with  its  toil  and  fret! 
Things  of  the  earth  men  seek  to  have  and  hold ; 
They  build  and  waste  again  thdr  mounds  of  gold. 
O  me !  the  din  of  life,  the  bell  that  peals, 
The  traffic,  and  the  roaring  of  the  wheels ! 
Work  glows  and  grows  and  satisfies  us  not ; 
Weary  we  are  of  what  our  hands  have  wrought, 
Weary  of  action  with  no  time  for  thought. 
The  much  we  do — how  little  it  must  count 
Without  some  pattern  showed  us  in  the  mount! 

Who  seeks  and  loves  the  company  of  great 
Ideals,  and  movas  among  them,  soon  or  late 
Will  learn  their  ways  and  language,  unaware 
Take  on  their  likeness,  ay,  and  some  day  share 
Their  immortality,  as  this  man  now 
Before  whose  life  we  reverently  bow. 

VIII. 

So  shines  the  lamp  of  Edwards;  still  it  sends 

One  golden  beam  down  the  long  track  of  years. 

This  resolute  truth  which  neither  yields  nor  spends,- 

That  life,  true  life,  is  not  of  what  appears. 

Not  of  the  things  the  world  piles  wide  and  high ; 

Tis  of  the  spirit  and  will  never  die. 

His  life  was  noble ;  wherefore  let  the  day 

White  with  his  memory  shine  beside  the  way — 

Adding  its  comfort  to  our  human  need — 

Like  some  fair  tablet  whereon  men  may  read : 

"Lo,  here  and  there,  great  witnesses  appear, — 

The  meek,  the  wise,  the  fearless,  the  sincere; 

They  live  their  lives  and  witness  to  the  word ; 

No  time  so  evil  but  their  voice  is  heard ; 

Nor  sword  nor  flame  can  stop  them;  though  they  die 

They  grow  not  silent ;  they  must  cry  their  cry ; 

Time's  many  a  wave  breaks  dying  on  the  shore ; 

They  cry  forever  and  forevermore; 

For,  in  and  through  such  men  as  these  men  are, 

God  lives  and  works,  and  it  were  easier  far 

To  dry  the  seas  and  roll  the  mountains  flat 

Than  banish  God ;  we  build  our  hopes  on  that." 


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The  Drift  Toward  Despotism:  A  Plea 
for  Democracy 


By  Harvey  N.  Shepard 


Editor's  Note: — ^The  following  article 
will  not  meet  unanimous  endorsement  in 
its  views,  but  it  will  be  read  with  interest, 
since  it  is  upon  a  matter  now  of  much  public 
moment,  and  its  author  is  one  who  can 
speak  from  experience.  Mr.  Shepard  was 
a  member  of  the  Common  Council  of 
Boston  when  men  like  Roger  Wolcott, 
Henry  Parkman,  William  F.  Wharton, 
Henry  W.  Swift  and  Thomas  N.  Hart 
were  his  associates,  and  part  of  the  time 
he  was  president  of  the  body.  Also  he 
was  one  of  the  commission  of  five  which 
drew  the  charter  of  the  year  1885  under 
which  Boston  is  now  governed.  As  will 
be  apparent  from  the  reading  of  the  article 
his  views  then  were  diflFerent  from  those 
entertained  by  him  now.  He  now  con- 
fiders  that  he  was  mistaken  in  supposing 
the  change  towards  centralization  of  the 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  mayor  would 
be  of  benefit.  The  views  he  now  entertains 
are  not  those  held  generally  by  men  who 
h£ve  manifested  the  largest  mterest  in 
municipal  affairs,  but  their  origrn  makes 
them  of  interest 

FOR  the  past  twenty  years  the 
tide  has  set  more  and  more 
strongly  every  year,  in  both 
national  and  local  affairs^  to 
centralized  control  and  away  from 
democratic  government.  Abraham 
Lincoln  defines  democratic  govern- 
ment as  "a  government  of  the  people, 
for  the  people,  and  by  the  people." 
All  three  portions  of  this  definition 
are  of  importance.  A  government  for 
the  people  is  not  a  democracy  neces- 
sarily. The  Autocrat  of  Russia  un- 
doubtedly considers  that  he  governs 
for  the  people.  Neither  is  a  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  for  Napoleon  was 
of  the  people  and  their  chosen  ruler; 


and  yet  his  government  was  alto- 
gether despotic.  Government  by  the 
people  is  found  to-day  in  the  town 
meetings  of  New  England,  and  in 
some  of  the  cantons  of  Switzerland; 
but  it  is  impracticable  on  any  large 
scale.  Democratic  government  there- 
fore usually  is  considered  to  be  a 
government  by  an  elective  assembly. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  recognizes  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives as  such  an  assembly ;  and, 
while  carefully  protecting  the  federa- 
tion of  the  states  by  the  institution 
of  the  Senate,  yet  as  carefully  makes 
the  House  the  real  representative 
body,  and  especially  gives  to  it  the 
initiative  in  all  money  matters.  We 
have  departed  very  far  from  the  in- 
tention of  its  framers. 

In  1896  the  highest  tariff  ever 
known  was  enacted  by  means  brutally 
despotic.  A  secret  conclave  prepared 
the  bill^  and  the  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  were  not 
permitted  to  alter  one  word  thereof, 
nor  to  pursue  any  portion  of  the  other 
business  for  which  they  had  been 
elected.  So  far  as  this  branch  of 
Congress  was  concerned,  it  would 
have  been  the  same  had  Mr.  Reed, 
Mr.  Dingley,  and  one  or  two  more  of 
the  representatives  selected  by  them, 
alone  gone  to  Washington. 

Of  all   strange  places   for  this  to 


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588 


THE  DRIFT  TOWARD   DESPOTISM: 


happen  the  strangest  is  a  republic, 
and  of  all  strange  subjects  for  its 
exercise  the  strangest  is  taxes.  It  is 
by  control  over  the  purse  that  in  Great 
Britain  and  Western  Europe  the  peo- 
ple have  won  freedom.  In  Great 
Britain  there  would  have  been  a  revo- 
lution before  the  House  of  Commons 
would  have  permitted  a  tax  bill  to 
be  passed  under  such  conditions  as 
went  with  our  Dingley  bill.  Many 
important  matters  also,  such  as  those 
pertaining  to  our  insular  possessions, 
the  Army,  and  the  Isthmian  canals, 
have  been  driven  through  the  House 
without  debate;  so  that  the  House 
generally  is  not  considered  longer  to 
be  a  place  where  discussion  is  ex- 
pected. 

The  House  has  brought  this  impo- 
tence upon  itself  by  the  adoption  of 
rules  which  submit  the  members  to 
the  domination  of  the  Speaker;  and 
of  its  own  volition  it  has  extinguished 
itself  as  a  debating  body.  Members 
have  liberty  to  write  speeches,  to  have 
them  printed,  and  to  send  them  to 
their  constituents;  but  rarely  to 
deliver  them,  and  even  then  with  no 
expectation  of  changing  the  vote. 

The  Representatives  of  the  nation 
cannot  speak,  cannot  make  a  motion, 
and  cannot  vote,  without  the  consent 
of  one  man.  In  no  other  country  in 
the  world  has  the  presiding  officer 
of  an  elective  assembly  such  powers. 
For  the  time  being  and  within  a  des- 
ignated sphere  the  Speaker  is  a  des- 
pot as  absolute  as  the  Czar  of  the  Rus- 
sias.  It  makes  no  difference  that  he 
is  elected,  while  the  Czar  comes  to  the 
throne  by  birth.  So  were  the  Roman 
Emperors  elected,  and  so  was  Napo- 
leon. A  majority  of  the  people  elected 
Napoleon,  as  a  majority  of  the  House 


elect  the  Speaker.  But  there  remained 
no  more  a  free  France,  and  there  is 
no  more  a  free  House. 

The  Senate  to-day  is  the  most  pow- 
erful body  within  the  Republic,  and, 
with  the  possible  exception  of  the 
Senate  of  ancient  Rome,  is  the  most 
powerful  large  body  known  to  his- 
tory. It  is  the  controlling  partner  in 
all  legislation,  and  treats  the  House 
of  Representatives  almost  with  con- 
tempt. By  its  power  over  the  ap- 
pointments by  the  President  and  its 
association  with  him  in  the  making  of 
treaties,  it  also  has  invaded  the  exec- 
utive department ;  so  that  now  both  in 
legislation  and  in  administration  it 
stands  nearly  supreme.  Its  members, 
chosen  for  a  long  term  of  years,  are 
little  responsive  to  public  opinion,  and 
make  as  nearly  an  autocratic  body  as 
can  be  found  at  present  anywhere. 

With  reference  to  Cuba  and  our 
insular  possessions  the  President  of 
the  United  States  has  exercised  auto- 
cratic powers.  So  far  as  these  were 
military  powers  and  up  to  the  close 
of  the  war  by  the  Treaty  of  Paris 
with  Spain  his  acts  were  in  accord 
with  established  custom.  But  since 
that  date  his  rule  in  Porto  Rico  and 
in  the  Philippine  Islands  has  been 
absolute.  It  is  true  that  this  rule 
has  been  through  agents,  and  for  a 
portion  of  the  time  by  virtue  of  Acts 
of  Congress.  Nevertheless  it  has 
been  absolute,  benignant  it  may  be, 
but  the  same  as  that  of  a  despot,  and 
wholly  inconsistent  with  our  Declara- 
tion of  Independence. 

It  is  human  nature  that  a  man  who 
exercises  autocratic  powers  in  one 
place  is  likely  to  try  to  exercise  like 
power  in  another  place  and  under 
other  conditions.     If  a  man  rule  as 


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A  PLEA  FOR  DEMOCRACY 


589 


a  despot  in  the  Philippine  Islands  he 
is  quite  likely  to  try  to  do  so  in  the 
United  States.  Such  changes  may  be 
slow,  but  are  inevitable.  Some  indi- 
cations already  have  been  apparent  in 
the  arbitrary  attempts  to  prevent  a 
free  discussion  of  the  Philippine  pol- 
icy, and  in  requiring  an  oath  upon 
landing  in  Manila  from  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States.  It  is  said  in 
reply,  and  said  truly,  that  the  people 
of  Great  Britain  have  not  lost  their 
liberties.  But  in  Great  Britain  control 
is  in  the  hands  of  a  changing  commit- 
tee of  Parliament,  while  here  is  an 
executive  independent  of  the  Legis- 
lature, and  it  is  to  him  these  auto- 
cratic powers  have  been  given.  A 
much  more  interesting  parallel  will 
be  found  in  the  history  of  Rome, 
where  the  men  who  held  absolute 
powers  in  the  provinces  came  back  as 
permanent  members  of  the  Senate. 

A  big  army  and  navy  are  required 
for  the  holding  of  these  insular  pos- 
sessions, and  must  tend  to  the 
increase  of  executive  control,  and  to 
put  democratic  institutions  in  dan- 
ger. No  nation  ever  began  to  get 
possessions  and  then  stopped,  and 
neither  will  we;  and  every  new  pos- 
session means  an  increase  of  the  army 
and  navy.  Then  it  is  natural  the 
army  at  home  should  be  used  in  do- 
mestic disturbances  where,  if  there 
were  not  a  large  federal  force,  the 
local  authorities  would  obtain  order 
by  their  own  efforts.  Whenever  the 
national  in  place  of  the  local  power 
is  used,  it  is  evident  that  to  this  ex- 
tent at  least  there  is  an  increase  of 
the  central  authority. 

In  state  affairs  the  same  tendency 
has  prevailed.  Most  of  the  new  con- 
stitutions adopted  since  the  Civil  War 


contain  limitations  upon  the  exercise 
of  the  legislative  power,  and  very 
largely  increase  the  authority  of  the 
executive.  In  addition  many  func- 
tions which  properly  belong  to  the 
legislature  have  been  vested  by  law 
in  commissions  or  departments  ap- 
pointed by  the  governor.  This  dis- 
trust of  the  Legislature  is  shown  by 
the  careful  and  minute  requirements 
relative  to  the  enactment  of  bills;  in 
some  instances  prescribing  by  consti- 
tution all  the  details. 

It  is  in  municipal  affairs,  however, 
that  the  tendency  has  reached  high- 
est, going  so  far  in  many  cities  as 
to  make  the  legislative  body  nearly 
if  not  altogether  useless.  City  coun- 
cils have  been  deprived  of  so  large  a 
part  of  the  powers  and  responsibilities 
entrusted  to  their  predecessors  as  to 
be  dwarfed  into  insignificant  and 
unimportant  branches  of  government. 
A  notable  example  is  in  the  charter 
of  New  York,  which  divests  the  gov- 
ernment from  the  elective  representa- 
tives of  the  people  assembled  in  coun- 
cil and  vests  it  in  the  mayor.  Democ- 
racy never  heretofore  has  been  con- 
ceived to  mean  a  community  ruled  by 
an  autocrat ;  but  always  a  community 
in  which  power  lies  in  an  elective  as- 
sembly. It  is  this  latter  conception  of 
democracy  which  has  been  abandoned 
in  the  large  cities  of  the  United 
States. 

The  mayor  of  New  York  is  elected 
for  four  years;  and,  with  one  excep- 
tion, appoints  the  members  of  eigh- 
teen boards  between  which  the  munic- 
ipal administration  is  divided.  The 
one  exception  is  the  Comptroller,  at 
the  head  of  the  finance  department. 
He  is  elected  at  the  same  time  as  the 
mayor.    The  mayor  also  appoints  all 


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THE  DRIFT  TOWARD   DESPOTISM: 


members  of  the  five  school  boards 
which  look  after  education  in  the  five 
boroughs  of  Greater  New  York. 

The  ordinance-making  power,  which 
normally  would '  belong  exclusively 
to  the  city  council,  is  conferred 
upon  the  executive  departments.  The 
council  is  reduced  to  a  debating  soci- 
ety. It  is  not  allowed  to  sanction  any 
work  involving  a  large  sum  of  money, 
or  to  create  any  debt,  or  to  dis- 
pose of  any  franchise,  or  to  levy 
any  tax,  without  the  concurrence  of 
the  Board  of  Estimate  and  Appor- 
tionment. Even  then  its  decision  is 
subject  to  a  veto  of  the  mayor. 
In  cases  of  public  improvements  of 
magnitude  and  cost  it  cannot  vote  by 
a  simple  majority.  Unless  it  can  mus- 
ter three-quarters  of  its  whole  mem- 
bership it  can  do  nothing.  Clauses  of 
the  charter  confer  upon  the  council 
certain  powers;  but,  at  the  end  of 
the  clauses,  you  always  find  that  they 
are  not  to  be  exercised  except  on  the 
initiative  of  some  department  which 
is  not  elective. 

Napoleon  never  claimed  such  con- 
trol over  the  Corps  Legislatif  as  the 
mayor  of  New  York  over  his  city 
council.  He  appoints  his  own  offi- 
cials, and  he  can  pass  his  own  budget. 
Faith  in  an  elective  council  seems 
utterly  to  have  perished.  The  shad- 
owy municipal  assemblies  provided 
some  years  ago  for  St.  Petersburg 
and  Moscow  had  greater  legislative 
and  financial  authority  than  has  the 
council  of  New  York,  and  neither  in 
those  Russian  cities  nor  in  the  Rus- 
sian provincial  governments  will  one 
find  a  bureaucratic  system  so  com- 
plete and  so  indirect  in  its  responsi- 
bilities to  the  public  as  the  bureau- 
cracy which  the  New  York  charter 


creates.  In  no  other  part  of  the 
globe,  however  autocratic  its  govern- 
ment, is  such  power  of  taxation  and 
appropriation  committed  to  so  unrep- 
resentative a  body  as  is  the  New  York 
Board  of  Estimate  and  Apportion- 
ment. A  like  body  was  imposed  upon 
Boston  for  a  year,  and  then  with  few 
regrets  swept  away. 

It  is  absurd  to  speak  of  New  York 
as  a  self-governing  municipality.  It 
is  a  great  administrative  district,  gov- 
erned according  to  the  will  and  pleas- 
ure of  the  Caesar  whom  the  electors 
vote  into  office,  and  of  the  men  ap- 
pointed by  him  to  do  the  whole  ad- 
ministrative work.  Into  his  hands,  as 
to  a  dictator,  is  delivered  the  second 
largest  city  in  the  world.  It  is,  as 
pointed  out  by  Mr.  Stead,  the  Second 
Empire  of  France  re-established  in 
the  first  city  of  the  American  Repub- 
lic, with  the  limitation  that  the  reign 
of  the  despot  is  limited  to  four  years. 

This  system  of  a  dictator  came  into 
operation  in  Brooklyn  in  1882;  and 
sprang,  Mayor  Low  says,  from  the 
timidity  of  the  citizens.  He  says  in 
Bryce*s  American  Commonwealth : 
"The  aim  of  the  Americans  for  many 
years  deliberately  was  to  make  a  city 
government  where  no  officer  by  him- 
self could  have  power  enough  to  do 
much  harm.  The  natural  result  of 
this  was  to  create  a  situation  where  no 
officer  had  power  to  do  good." 

Mr.  Low  claims  for  the  new  sys- 
tem the  virtues  and  vices  of  all  des- 
potisms. When  you  have  a  good 
ruler  nothing  can  be  better,  if  you 
consider  administration  only.  When 
you  have  a  bad  ruler  nothing  can  be 
worse.  As  he  says,  the  Brooklyn  sys- 
tem "made  clear  to  the  simplest 
citizen  that  the  entire  character  of  the 


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city  government  depends  upon  the 
man  chosen  for  the  office  of  mayor/* 

The  Brooklyn  system  has  been 
adopted,  with  modifications,  in  Cleve- 
land, Cincinnati,  Boston,  Philadel- 
phia, and  many  more  large  cities. 

When  the  charter  of  Greater  New 
York  came  to  be  discussed  the  advo- 
cates of  vesting  the  government  in  the 
hands  of  an  elective  council  were  in 
a  hopeless  minority,  and  the  charter 
was  drawn  upon  the  Brooklyn  basis. 
Its  advocates  used  the  familiar  argu- 
ments which  are  employed  by  apolo- 
gists for  autocracy  all  over  the  world. 
Their  keynote  was  concentration  of 
responsibility.  Mr.  Edward  M.  Shep- 
ard  calls  this  system  **the  most  im- 
portant gain  in  municipal  reform  in 
our  time.'' 

Distrust  of  city  councils  and  of  the 
capacity  of  their  committees  to  con- 
duct the  executive  business  of  a  city, 
and  the  substitution  therefor  of  the 
"one-man  power"  of  the  mayor,  have 
been  the  chief  features  of  our  recent 
municipal  development.  City  coun- 
cils control  in  general  British,  French, 
German  and  Italian  cities;  but  in 
the  Republic  of  the  United  States 
they  no  longer  are  considered  trust- 
worthy. 

The  change  has  gone  further  in 
Washington,  the  capital  of  the  Re- 
public, than  elsewhere.  This  city  is 
a  most  complete  despotism,  the  gov- 
ernment being  by  three  commission- 
ers appointed  by  the  President,  who 
possess  for  the  time  being  all  admin- 
istrative and  legislative  powers.  They 
assess  and  collect  taxes,  appoint  all 
officials,  and  grant  all  franchises ;  and 
the  people  of  the  city  have  no  voice 
whatever  in  its  government.  It  is 
true  the  government  is  efficient,  hon- 


est and  economical ;  and  the  same  may 
be  said  of  many  despotisms. 

It  is  an  additional  evil  that  many  of 
our  large  cities  are  governed  in  some 
of  their  departments  not  by  their  own 
inhabitants  but  by  the  state  legislature 
or  commissioners  authorized  by  them. 
In  more  than  one  state  the  control  of 
the  police  and  of  the  streets,  either  in 
whole  or  in  part,  has  been  taken  from 
the  cities  and  lodged  with  commis- 
sioners appointed  by  the  Governor. 
Frequently  the  Legislature  has  taken 
upon  itself  to  provide  for  the  building 
or  widening  of  streets,  and  for  many 
other  matters  of  purely  local  concern. 
Indeed,  in  Massachusetts  probably 
one-half  or  more  of  the  whole  session 
of  the  Legislature  each  year  is  occu- 
pied with  matters  which  belong  to  the 
city  of  Boston.  The  result  is  that 
during  the  annual  sessions  of  the  Leg- 
islature a  large  part  of  the  work  of 
governing  this  city  must  be  trans- 
acted in  the  State  House.  In  the  ten 
years  from  1880  to  1890  no  fewer  than 
399  different  amending  laws  were 
passed  in  Albany  affecting  the  charter 
of  New  York.  Besides^  we  see  fre- 
quently an  anomalous  condition  of 
things  when  the  representatives  of  one 
department  appear  before  a  commit- 
tee of  the  Legislature  advocating 
something  which  is  opposed  by  the 
representatives  of  some  other  depart- 
ment, or  by  the  officers  of  the  city; 
and  it  has  happened  more  than  once 
that  the  mayor  himself  has  met  with 
opposition  before  legislative  commit- 
tees from  commissioners  supposed  to 
be  under  his  jurisdiction. 

One  would  not  expect  a  private  cor- 
poration to  do  its  business  satisfac- 
torily under  such  conditions,  and  it 
is  idle  to  expect  it  in  municipalities. 


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THE  DRIFT  TOWARD   DESPOTISM: 


Suppose,  too,  that  the  officers  in 
charge  of  some  branch  of  a  railway 
corporation  could  do  as  they  pleased 
relative  to  the  running  of  the  trains, 
the  hiring  of  the  employees,  and  all  the 
expenses  of  the  branch;  this  would 
not  be  considered  other  than  a  fool- 
ish business  method;  and  yet  this  is 
exactly  the  situation  of  many  munici- 
palities with  reference  to  the  police 
and  other  departments,  the  commis- 
sioners frequently  having  full  power 
and  control  of  all  the  expenses,  with- 
out supervision  by  the  city  council  and 
without  regard  to  the  other  expenses 
of  the  city.  Not  only  is  such  a  policy 
an  injury  to  the  city  or  town  affected, 
from  the  removal  of  responsibility, 
but  it  is  an  injury  to  the  remaining 
portions  of  the  state,  in  that  the  atten- 
tion of  the  legislators  is  distracted 
from  their  proper  duties  to  matters 
of  local  concern.  Mr.  Justice  Brewer 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  has  well  said:  "Thoughtful 
men  more  and  more  see  that  the  wise 
thing  is  to  cast  upon  each  community 
full  responsibility  for  the  management 
of  its  local  affairs,  and  that  the  gjeat 
danger  to  free  government  is  in  the 
centralization  of  power." 

For  our  departure  from  democracy 
its  advocates  cannot  plead  the  im- 
provement which  they  promised  to 
us.  The  degradation  of  the  House 
of  Representatives  is  not  a  pleasant 
prospect ;  and,  in  the  light  of  our  ex- 
perience in  our  insular  possessions, 
we  no  longer  dare  quote  as  true  the 
principles  of  our  own  Declaration  of 
Independence.  We  begin  to  find  a 
big  army  and  navy  costly  burdens  of 
imperialism.  The  governors  of  our 
states  are  no  abler  or  better  men  than 
were  their  predecessors,  before  their 


legislatures  were  shorn  of  a  portion 
of  their  usual  functions. 

And,  with  the  exception  of  Wash- 
ington, it  may  be  questioned  whether 
the  expectations  of  those  who  brought 
about  such  radical  changes  in  our 
municipal  governments  have  suc- 
ceeded. In  fact,  on  every  hand  com- 
plaints are  heard  of  our  cities ;  and  it 
is  acknowledged  that  they  are  a  deep 
blot  upon  our  civilization.  If  power 
and  responsibility  have  been  put  into 
the  hands  of  one  man,  there  neces- 
sarily has  gone  with  this  a  loss  of 
interest  upon  the  part  of  the  citizens. 
New  York,  for  instance,  under  a  good 
mayor  is  administered  but  little,  if 
any,  better  than  under  the  old  system, 
and  under  a  bad  mayor  it  is  admin- 
istered much  worse.  The  same  is 
true  of  other  cities.  Matters  of  pub- 
lic interest,  formerly  debated  in  a 
public  assembly,  now  are  determined 
in  the  private  office  of  some  official; 
and  this  gives  the  opportunity  for  cor- 
ruption ;  and  it  is  quite  evident  the  op- 
portunity has  been  used. 

Neither  is  the  rule  of  the  mayor 
more  efficient  than  was  the  rule  of  the 
council.  Thirty  years  ago  Boston 
was  noted  for  the  appearance  of  its 
streets,  which  were  referred  to 
throughout  the  country  as  models  of 
cleanliness.  No  one,  alas,  would 
dream  of  doing  so  any  more. 

The  commissions  or  boards,  which 
have  been  established  in  place  of  the 
former  council  committees,  in  charge 
of  executive  departments,  are  not 
composed  of  men  of  greater  achieve- 
ment or  higher  standing  than  were  in 
the  old  committees.  There  is  many  a 
citizen  who  could  not  be  induced  by 
any  salary  to  sell  to  the  city  all  his 
time    by    membership    upon    a    paid 

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board,  who  is  willing  to  give  freely 
a  portion  of  it  by  membership  upon  a 
committee  of  an  unpaid  council. 
Neither  has  there  been  a  continuity  of 
plan  and  purpose  under  paid  commis- 
sioners greater  than  that  under  coun- 
cil committees,  though  this  was  one  of 
the  strongest  arguments  for  the 
change.  The  public  has  an  opportu- 
nity every  year  to  express  its  opinion 
upon  the  merits  of  its  servants  in  the 
city  council.  The  heads  of  depart- 
ments chosen  by  the  council  or  its 
committees  have  to  pass  an  annual  ex- 
amination, so  to  speak,  upon  their 
qualifications  for  office.  But  the 
commissioner,  established  by  statute 
and  not  by  ordinance,  by  act  of  the 
state  and  not  of  the  city,  is  not  held 
to  the  performance  of  duty  by  any- 
thing except  his  personal  sense  of 
honor.  He  may  be  removed  for 
cause,  it  is  true,  but  the  power  of  re- 
moval rarely  is  exercised  unless  his 
misconduct  be  flagrant.  It  also  is  a 
decided  loss  that  the  departments  are 
not  represented  in  the  councils  by 
members  who  are  familiar  with  their 
functions  and  wants,  especially  when 
the  annual  appropriation  bill  is  under 
consideration. 

Also  paid  commissioners  do  not  de- 
vote more  time  to  the  service  of  the 
city  than  was  given  gratuitously  by 
the  committees  of  the  council  when 
the  departments  were  in  charge  of 
such  committees,  and  neither  has  any- 
thing been  gained  in  experience,  the 
term  of  service  of  the  commissioners, 
in  comparison  with  that  of  the  alder- 
men, for  instance,  being  about  the 
same. 

Another  evil  of  the  present  system 
is  that  it  makes  it  more  possible  for  a 
boss  to  control  and  establish  his  power 


so  firmly  as  only  to  be  shaken  off  by 
what  amounts  nearly  to  a  revolution. 
This  has  been  shown  again  and  again 
in  the  city  of  New  York,  and  is  quite 
as  true,  though  not  so  notorious,  in 
other  cities.  The  loss  of  public  inter- 
est in  the  citizens  is  inevitable,  and  it 
is  idle  for  complaint  to  be  made  of 
this.  Of  what  use  was  the  interest  of 
a  Roman  in  the  administration  of  his 
city  during  the  Empire,  and  of  what 
use  the  interest  of  a  Frenchman  dur- 
ing the  control  of  France  by  Napo- 
leon? Why  should  a  resident  of 
Washington  interest  himself  actively 
in  the  streets  or  the  lights  when  these 
are  administered  by  three  commission- 
ers absolutely  beyond  his  control  ?  So 
it  is  of  our  other  cities.  While  they 
are  administered  by  a  dictator,  it  is 
idle  to  expect  that  the  citizens  will 
take  any  active  part  in  municipal 
matters. 

This  loss  of  interest  is  recognized 
upon  all  hands  as  an  evil,  and  very 
many  clubs  and  other  organizations 
have  been  established  to  overcome  it. 
These  are  good  so  far  as  they  go,  but 
have  not  met  with  continuous  success. 
However  much  they  flourish  in  the 
beginning,  the  end  has  been  the  same 
in  all  cases,  and  either  they  have  dis- 
banded or  have  relapsed  into  inactiv- 
ity. This  is  inevitable,  because  you 
cannot  expect  men  to  continue  an  ac- 
tive interest  when  their  efforts  tend 
only  to  a  choice  of  candidates,  or  to 
counsel  and  advice  to  officials  over 
whom  they  have  no  control,  or  to  in- 
duce the  district  attorney  to  secure 
punishment  for  wrong  doing. 

■  Municipal  expenditures  have  in- 
creased under  the  new  system  out  of 
all  proportion  to  the  growth  of  the 
cities,    either    in    population    or    in 


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THE  DRIFT  TOWARD   DESPOTISM: 


amount.  Take  the  city  of  Boston, 
•  for  instance.  The  indebtedness  has 
mounted  with  giant  strides  until  to- 
day it  is  more  than  double  what  it  was 
in  1885,  when  the  change  began,  and 
Boston  probably  is  the  heaviest  taxed 
city  in  the  world.  From  1822,  when 
Boston  received  its  first  charter,  to 
1885,  when  government  by  the  mayor 
began,  a  period  of  sixty-three  years, 
the  net  debt  came  to  twenty-four 
million  dollars.  Since  the  central- 
ization of  power,  it  has  grown  to  fifty- 
five  million  dollars.  Yearly  expen- 
ditures also  have  increased  in  che 
ratio  of  two  to  one  during  the  seven- 
teen years  in  which  power  has  been 
centralized  in  the  hands  of  the  mayor. 
Loans  are  made  for  all  sorts  of  pur- 
poses, which,  under  the  old  system, 
were  paid  from  the  tax  levy.  State 
restrictions  upon  the  amount  of  mu- 
nicipal indebtedness  have  not  proved 
to  be  of  the  least  avail.  The  city 
council  cannot  borrow  money  beyond 
certain  amounts,  and  so  men  go  to  the 
state  and  get  there  the  loans  they 
want,  and  responsibility  therefor  can 
be  fastened  upon  no  one. 

Must  we  despair  of  democracy,  then, 
after  all,  and  abandon  all  hope  of  gov- 
erning by  the  machinery  of  elective 
assemblies?  Is  the  dictator  indis- 
pensable for  the  salvation  of  the  Re- 
public? Fortunately  the  reaction  has 
begun.  Earnest  students  have  taken 
up  the  problem  how  to  make  the  Sen- 
ate responsive  to  public  opinion  and 
how  to  restore  to  the  House  its  former 
prestige.  More  and  more  we  are 
coming  to  recognize  it  to  be  our  duty 
to  give  to  the  peoples  of  our  insular 
possessions  the  same  rights  of  self- 
government  which  we  claim  for  our- 
selves.    More  and  more  the  convic- 


tion is  growing  that  it  is  best  both  for 
the  state  and  for  the  town  that  local 
affairs  should  be  controlled  at  home. 
More  and  more  we  question  whether 
the  remedy  for  municipal  evils  is  to 
continue  the  present  system  by  depriv- 
ing city  councils  of  their  little  author- 
ity yet  remaining,  and  giving  even  it 
to  the  executive.  This  course  yet 
finds  stalwart  support,  and  the  aboli- 
tion of  the  common  council  is  advo- 
cated by  many.  In  the  light  of  the 
past  we  well  may  doubt  whether  this 
will  bring  any  relief. 

The  alternative  is  to  go  back  to 
democratic  principles  by  enfranchis- 
ing once  more  the  councils  and  giving 
to  them  control.  The  town  meetings 
in  New  England  have  been  regarded 
by  most  students  as  the  occasion  of 
the  sturdy  strength  of  the  people  in 
the  conflict  with  France  over  Can- 
ada, and  with  the  Mother  Country 
itself  in  the  Revolution.  Such  town 
meetings  probably  are  impracticable 
in  cities;  but,  in  place  of  them,  it  is 
possible  to  have  a  large  legislative  as- 
sembly, and  to  give  control  to  it. 

It  is  not  simply  a  question  of  ad- 
ministration. The  most  important 
consideration  is  the  effect  upon  the 
citizens  themselves.  The  strength  of 
our  Republic  from  the  beginning 
has  rested  upon  the  ability  and  will- 
ingness of  the  people  to  manage  their 
own  affairs,  and  there  is  no  more 
ominous  sign  in  the  present  political 
horizon  than  the  apparent  want  of 
confidence  in  their  continued  ability 
so  to  do.  A  strong  and  sturdy  citizen- 
ship is  the  best  support,  and  in  fact 
the  only  abiding  support,  of  a  free 
community,  and  this  is  not  possible 
if  all  matters  are  to  be  managed  for 
the  citizens  instead  of  by  the  citizens. 


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As  Mr.  Gladstone  said:  "The  fran- 
chise is  an  educational  power.  The 
possession  of  it  quickens  the  intelli- 
gence, and  tends  to  bind  the  nation  to- 
gether. It  is  more  important  to  have 
an  alert,  well-taught,  and  satisfied 
people  than  a  theoretically  good 
legislative  machine." 

The  argument  commonly  advanced, 
that,  as  most  of  the  city's  work  is  ex- 
ecutive in  character,  it  should  for  that 
reason  be  vested  in  an  executive  of- 
ficer, is  refuted  by  the  experience  of 
foreign  cities,  most  of  which  are  ad- 
mittedly well  governed  under  the 
committee  system.  The  concentra- 
tion of  power  in  the  mayor's  hands  is 
in  fact  defended  not  so  much  on  busi- 
ness as  on  political  grounds.  The 
legislative  system  works  well  enough, 
it  is  said,  in  the  cities  of  Europe 
because  the  property-owners  there  are 
in  control,  but  very  badly  in  this 
country  under  universal  suffrage. 

It  is  a  sufficient  answer  that  such 
distrust  is  un-democratic  and  un- 
American,  and  also  it  is  not  true  thai 
municipal  suffrage  generally  in  West- 
ern Europe  is  less  extensive  than  here, 
as  Mr.  Chamberlain  pointed  out  some 
years  ago  in  the  comparison  made  by 
him  between  Manchester,  England, 
and  Boston,  Massachusetts.  Besides, 
tax  rates  have  increased  more  rapidly 
in  the  small  towns  of  the  United 
States,  where  the  great  majority  of 
the  voters  are  tax-payers,  than  in  the 
large  cities. 

Our  present  system  is  anomalous, 
with  a  council  and  a  mayor  indepen- 
dent of  the  council.  The  cities  of  Eu- 
rope are  controlled  by  the  council,  the 
mayor  being  either  a  paid  official, 
chosen  by  it,  as  in  Germany,  like  the 


president  of  a  corporation  here,  or  the 
chairman  of  the  council,  as  in  Eng- 
land. It  has  not  been  found  difficult 
to  get  good  men  for  these  positions; 
and  the  cities  are  well  administered; 
the  citizens  having  a  lively  interest  in 
all  transactions.  On  a  larger  scale  the 
same  thing  is  shown  in  the  govern- 
ment of  Great  Britain  itself,  which 
really  is  by  Parliament,  the  ministers 
being  a  chosen  committee,  and  in 
Switzerland,  the  President  of  the  Re- 
public being  an  officer  of  the  central 
council.  It  is  probable  that  cities  will 
undertake  more  and  more  for  their 
citizens.  We  all  agree  that  cities 
should  manage  the  schools,  the  water 
supply,  and  other  like  things,  and  no 
one  can  say  we  may  not  wisely  go  fur- 
ther in  this  direction.  Plans  of  this 
sort,  undoubtedly,  will  be  met  by 
prejudice  and  selfish  interest;  but, 
nevertheless,  the  whole  course  of 
events  shows  that  more  and  more 
things  now  in  private  hands  will  be 
managed  by  the  community. 

Cities  ought  to  be  allowed  the  larg- 
est liberty  to  govern  themselves,  to 
determine  from  year  to  year  what  is 
best  adapted  to  their  wants,  to  abolish 
or  consolidate  departments,  when- 
ever such  consolidations  will  promote 
efficiency  and  reduce  expenditures, 
and  to  enter  upon  such  enterprises  of 
public  comfort  or  utility  as  may  seem 
to  them  best.  It  is  pleasant  to  recog- 
nize a  growing  sentiment  in  favor  of 
increasing  the  control  over  its  own 
affairs  now  enjoyed  by  a  city,  and  it 
is  to  be  hoped  many  years  will  not 
elapse  before  every  city  will  secure 
those  extensive  powers  of  self-gov- 
ernment which  have  been  exercised  so 
profitably  in  foreign  cities.    The  best 


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THE    DRIFT    TOWARD    DESPOTISM 


security  against  interference  by  the 
state  with  local  affairs  is  through 
making  the  city  council  a  body  of  such 
character  and  strength  that  its  action 
will  be  considered  to  be  the  expression 
of  local  opinion.  In  no  community, 
homogeneous  or  heterogeneous,  can 
public  affairs  be  managed  successfully 
when  the  state  always  stands  ready  to 
remodel  the  charter  whenever  a 
minority  in  the  city  can  command  the 
support  of  a  majority  in  the  state. 

An  interesting  movement  in  these 
directions  is  now  upon  trial  in  San 
Francisco.  Eleswhere  a  city  must  go 
to  the  state  legislature  for  an  amend- 
ment of  its  charter.'  In  San  Fran- 
cisco, "Whenever  there  shall  be  pre- 
sented to  the  supervisors  a  petition 
signed  by  a  number  of  voters  equal  to 
fifteen  per  centum  of  the  votes  cast  at 
the  last  preceding  state  or  municipal 
election,  asking  that  an  amendment  or 
amendments  to  this  charter,  to  be  set 
out  in  such  petition,  be  submitted  to 
the  people,  the  board  must  submit  to 
the  vote  of  the  electors  of  the  city  and 
county  the  proposed  amendment  or 
amendments." 

The  supervisors  must  procure  plans 
and  estFmates  of  the  actual  cost  of  the 
construction  of  water  works,  gas 
works,  electric  light  works,  steam, 
water  or  electric  power  works,  tele- 
phone lines,  street  railroads,  and  such 
other  public  utilities  as  the  super- 
visors or  the  people  by  petition  to  the 
board  may  designate. 

After  such  plans  and  estimates  shall 
have  been  procured,  the  supervisors 
shall  enter  into  negotiations  for  the 
permanent  acquisition  by  original  con- 
struction, condemnation  or  permanent 
acquisition  and  ownership  thereof. 


Before  submitting  propositions  to 
the  electors  for  the  acquisition 
by  original  construction  or  con- 
demnation, of  public  utilities, 
the  supervisors  must  solicit  and 
consider  offers  for  the  sale  of 
existing  utilities  in  order  that 
the  electors  shall  have  the  benefit 
of  acquiring  the  same  at  the  lowest 
possible  cost  thereof. 

It  is  profitable  to  note  that  at  tlie 
last  election  in  Chicago  good  citizens 
were  not  alarmed  upon  the  question 
of  who  might  be  elected  mayor,   as 
they  felt  certain  that  in  any  event  the 
city  council  would  contain  a  majority 
of  discreet  men,  and  they  knew  that 
fortunately  it  had  not  been  shorn  of 
all  power.    All  their  eggs  were  not  in 
one  basket.     On  the  other   hand    in 
New  York  and  Boston  we  stake  all 
upon  the  election  of  one  man.     It  is 
idle  to  complain  of  the  quality  of  the 
members  of  our  city  councils,  as  we 
cannot  expect  able  men  to  take  these 
places    where    they    are   given    little 
power  and  but  little  to  do.     With  few 
exceptions  the  successful  business  or 
professional    man    would   not   accept 
election,  because  of  the  puerile  duties 
now  required  of  the  city  councils.    If 
we  want  great  men,  we  must  give  to 
them    great    duties,    and    experience 
shows  that  then  it  always  is  possible 
to  find  them. 

With  all  its  faults,  democracy  is 
more  stable  and  better  than  any  other 
form  of  government.  It  is  safe  to 
trust  the  people,  and  an  appeal  to 
their  sound  judgment  and  good  sense 
rarely  fails.  Let  us  speedily  regain 
the  ancient  ways,  and  return  to  the 
fundamental  principles  of  democratic 
institutions. 


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The  President's  Horsemanship 

By  Elmer  E.  Paine 


I 


N  President  Roosevelt's  latest 
contribution  to  current  litera- 
ture, "The  Deer  Family,"  this 
paragraph  appears: 

*It  is  an  excellent  thing  for  any  man 
to  be  a  good  horseman  and  a  good 
marksman,  to  be  able  to  live  in  the  open 
and  to  feel  a  self-reliant  readiness  in  any 
crisis." 

Theodore  Roosevelt  is  an  accom- 
plished horseman.  Of  all  forms  of 
physical  exercise,  he  enjoys  horse- 
back riding  most.  A  man  of  letters 
and  a  student  of  people  and  of  affairs, 
he  yet  is  essentially  a  man  of  action. 
He  is  proficient  in  many  kinds  of  out- 
of-doors  sports  and  at  some  he  excels ; 
but  in  horsemanship  he  has  few 
equals.  He  loves  a  horse — the  thor- 
oughbred, the  hunter,  the  broncho  of 
the  plains,  the  pony  of  the  polo  field. 
He  has  little  interest,  however,  in  the 
racing  of  horses  as  a  business.  The 
environments  of  the  race-course  do 
not  appeal  to  him.  With  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  thoroughbred  he  is  entirely 
familiar;  and  in  contests  of  speed 
incident  to  the  development  of  run- 
ners, trotters  and  pacers,  he  manifests 
the  concern  of  the  scientific  horseman. 

Of  his  own  horses  he  makes  com- 
panions and  friends.  He  knows  them 
and  they  understand  him.  He  talks 
to  them,  pets  them  and  plays  with 
them.  They  know  his  voice  and  his 
step.  As  he  approaches  them,  they 
turn  their  heads  affectionately  toward 
him  and  whinny  softly  for  the  lumps 
of  sugar  he  invariably  carries  in  his 
pockets. 

While  the  President  is  an  expert 


whip,  being  a  notably  excellent  driver 
of  a  coach-and-four,  he  is  at  his  best 
in  the  saddle.  On  horse-back  he  pre- 
sents a  fine  appearance.  He  is  not  a 
graceful  rider,  but  he  has  a  firm  seat 
and  absolutely  perfect  control  of  his 
mount.  His  style  of  riding  is  that  of 
the  cowboy,  acquired  on  the  plains  of 
the  Northwest  more  than  a  score  of 
years  ago.  It  is  easy  and  natural. 
The  motions  of  his  body  coincide  per- 
fectly with  the  movements  of  his 
horse.  In  cross-country  runs,  he  rides 
**with  hands  and  feet,"  with  heel- 
holds  on  the  stirrups  and  with  his 
arms  rising  and  falling  in  consonance 
with  the  leaps  of  his  mount. 

The  President's  methods  on  horse- 
back are  distinctly  different  from 
those  of  his  saddle  orderly.  Sergeant 
Cornelius  McDermott,  of  the  United 
States  Cavalry,  who  accompanies  him 
on  all  his  rides  about  Washington. 
McDermott  is  a  superb  horesman.  He 
has  earned  for  himself  the  reputation 
of  being  one  of  the  most  daring  riders 
in  the  American  army.  He  rides  with 
that  erect  rigidity  of  body  which  is 
characteristic  of  the  United  States 
cavalryman,  taking  up  all  the  motions 
of  his  horse  with  his  insteps,  knees  and 
hips.  Incidentally,  he  is  the  best  re- 
volver shot  in  the  cavalry  service.  His 
duty  is  to  guard  the  President  against 
personal  assault  in  the  unfrequented 
places  through  which  Mr.  Roosevelt 
delights  to  ride.  It  is  his  business  to 
be  fifteen  paces  behind  the  President, 
whether  tlie  latter's  horse  is  moving  at 
a  gentle  walk  or  at  a  hard  run ;  and  he 

597 

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598 


THE   PRESIDENTS   HORSEMANSHIP 


is  always  there.  Quite  frequently 
President  Roosevelt  leaves  the  bicycle 
policemen  in  a  cloud  of  dust  far  in  the 
rear,  but  never  McDermott. 

When  the  President  turns  from  the 
road,  leaps  a  fence  and  starts  on  a 
run  across  country,  to  the  despair  of 
his  civic  guards,  McDermott  is  at  his 
horse's  heels.  Together  they  sweep 
across  fields  and  through  woods,  often 
at  a  killing  pace,  taking  such  usual 
obstacles  as  fences,  ditches,  streams 
and  fallen  timber  as  they  come.  Then 
it  is  that  tlie  stern  features  of  the 
President  relax.  The  exhilaration  of 
the  exercise  drives  care  from  his 
countenance.  The  elements  of  physi- 
cal danger  or  of  exhaustion  count  as 
nothing.  He  becomes  enthusiastic. 
His  arms  swing  like  flails.  With 
voice  and  spur  he  urges  his  horse  on- 
ward. He  laughs  for  very  joy.  He  is 
a  being  transformed.     No  longer   is 


he  Theodore  Roosevelt,  President;  he 
is  Theodore  Roosevelt,  sportsman, — 
a  type  of  the  highest  and  best  Amer- 
ican sportsmanship. 

President  Roosevelt  has  in  the  WTiite 
House  stables  three  saddle  horses,  all 
of  which  he  rides  frequently.  His 
favorite  mount,  Bleistein,  is  a  quali- 
fied hunter,  of  a  light  bay  color  with 
black  points,  and  a  trifle  over  sixteen 
hands  high.  He  was  bred  in  the  fa- 
mous Genesee  Valley,  New  York. 
With  the  President  on  his  back,  Blei- 
stein has  cleared  bars  five  feet,  eight 
inches  high.  He  has  a  record  of  six 
feet.  Renown,  another  qualified 
hunter,  is  a  Canadian-bred,  seal  brown 
gelding,  sixteen  and  a  half  hands  high, 
with  a  record  of  five  feet  over  the  bar^ 
with  the  President  on  his  back.  Both 
Bleistein  and  Renown  possess  indortii- 
table  endurance  and  courage.  Wyo- 
ming, a  chestnut  bay  with  white  points. 


Copyright  1903  by  Waldon  Fawcett 

President's    Favorite   Hunter,    Bleistein 


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Copyright  1903  by  Waldon  l<awceit 

President's  Riding  Horse  Wyoming 


was  presented  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  last 
spring  by  the  citizens  of  the  state  for 
which  he  was  named.  He  is  a  beauti- 
ful animal,  highly  bred  and  of  great 
speed.  He  is  the  favorite  saddle  horse 
of  the  President's  eldest  son,  Theo- 
dore, who  gives  promise  of  being  as 
fine  a  horseman  as  his  father. 

The  President  first  rode  Wyoming 
while  on  his  western  trip  last  May, 
the  horse  being  his  last  relay  on  the 
seventy-mile  ride  from  Laramie  to 
Cheyenne.  That  was  a  memorable 
ride.  While  several  of  those  who  ac- 
companied the  President  were  worn 
with  fatigue  when  they  arrived  at 
Cheyenne,  he  was  apparently  as  fresh, 
after  having  been  eight  hours  in  the 
saddle,  as  he  was  at  the  start.  The 
following  day  he  took  another  gallop 
of  twenty-eight  miles. 


Last  July,  the  President,  mounted 
on  Bleistein,  accompanied  by  his  son, 
Theodore,  and  his  nephew,  George 
Roosevelt,  the  former  riding  Wyo- 
ming, left  his  summer  home,  Sagamore 
Hill,  Oyster  Bay,  at  two  o'clock  one 
morning  to  visit  his  uncle,  the  Hon. 
Robert  Roosevelt,  at  Sayville,  L.  L 
A  violent  thunder  storm  had  been 
raging  for  hours,  but  neither  the 
President  nor  his  young  companions 
were  to  be  deterred  from  making  the 
trip  by  a  mere  crash  of  the  elements. 
Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  the 
night  was  so  dark  as  to  render  objects 
indistinguishable  at  a  distance  greater 
than  a  horse's  length,  and  that  the 
roadway  was  illuminated  only  by  oc- 
casional flashes  of  lightning,  the  jour- 
ney across  Long  Island — thirty-five 
miles — was  covered  by  the  little  caval- 


599 


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Copyright  1903  by  Waldon  Fawcctt 

President's  Old  Polo  Pony,  Diamond,  now  27  Years  of  age 


cade  in  a  trifle  over  four  hours.  The 
return  trip  was  made  the  following 
morning  in  seven  hours,  the  President 
adopting  the  expedient  he  had  learned 
in  the  West  in  riding  and  leading  the 
horses  each  alternate  hour  so  that  they 
might  not  suffer  ill  effects  from  the 
excessive  heat. 

A  particular  favorite  with  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  among  his  horses  is  the 
polo  pony  Diamond.  He  is  tenderly 
attached  to  the  sturdy  animal.  Dia- 
mond is  twenty-seven  years  old  and 
Mr.  Roosevelt  has  owned  him  for 
twenty-five  years.  The  little  Texan 
carried  the  President  through  many 
an  exciting  game  of  polo,  but  he  was 
pensioned  long  since  for  faithful  ser- 
vices. 

Mrs.  Roosevelt's  mount  is  Yagenka, 
a  dark  bay  mare,  with  stylish  carriage 
and  muscles  like  steel  springs.  She 
has  carried  her  mistress  after  the 
hounds  on  several  notable  hunts. 
Mrs.  Roosevelt    frequently   accompa- 

600 


nies  the  President  on  long  rides.  She 
and  Mr.  Roosevelt  seemingly  enjoy  a 
gallop  together  in  cold  or  rainy 
weather  quite  as  thoroughly  as  if  the 
weather  were  ideal.  On  many  after- 
noons in  the  winter  they  may  be  seen 
riding  over  the  fine  roads  around 
Washington,  laughing  and  chatting 
animatedly,  while  the  biting  wind 
whistles  shrilly  about  their  ears. 
On  such  occasions  the  President  is 
attired  in  a  short,  heavy,  dark-blue 
pea-jacket,  with  fur  collar  rolled  about 
his  neck;  heavy  riding  breeches  of 
dark  material,  yellow  leather  riding 
boots  and  a  black  slouch  hat.  Mrs. 
Roosevelt  wears  a  black  cloth  habit, 
rather  shorter  than  is  worn  ordinarily, 
and  a  black  derby  hat  with  a  heavy, 
dark  veil. 

Miss  Alice  Roosevelt  is  the  true 
daughter  of  her  father,  with  all  his 
predilection  for  athletic  sports.  She 
is  an  excellent  horsewoman  and  often, 
at  the  Chevy  Chase  Hunt  Club,  near 


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THE   PRESIDENT'S   HORSEMANSHIP 


601 


Washington,  she  takes  the  jumps  on 
the  backs  of  Renown  or  Yagenka. 

The  one  remaining  saddte  animal 
in  the  White  House  stables  is  Algon- 
quin, the  "calico  pony."  He  is  a  Shet- 
land and  is  ridden  by  the  President's 
sons,  Archie  and  Quentin,  aged  re- 
spectively nine  and  six  years.  Archie, 
attired  in  Rough  Rider  costume,  often 
gallops  on  the  calico  pony  through  the 
streets  of  Washington,  followed  by  a 
groom  on  a  bicycle.  A  genuine  affec- 
tion exists  between  Archie  and  Algon- 
quin. Last  spring  when  the  little  lad 
was  confined  to  his  bed  by  a  severe 
illness  he  expressed  a  desire  to  see  the 
calico  pony.  His  willing  slave,  the 
groom,  surmounted  all  difficulties. 
He  took  the  pony  into  the  White 
House,  ascended  with  him  on  the  ele- 
vator to  the  second  floor  and  led  him 
to  the  bedside  of  his  little  friend. 
Archie  flung  his  arms  around  Algon- 
quin's neck  and  the  pony  whinnied 
caressingly,  as  if  he  quite  appreciated 


and  reciprocated  his  rhaster's  affec- 
tion. 

The  President's  carriage  horses  are 
bright  bays,  15.3  hands  high,  and  bred 
in  Ohio  of  fine  trotting  stock.  They 
are  as  handsome  a  pair  as  appear  on 
the  streets  of  the  national  capital. 

Washington  never  has  known  a 
President  who  lived  so  much  in  the 
open  as  Mr.  Roosevelt.  If  the  roads 
are  too  muddy  for  horse-back  riding, 
he  walks.  These  walks  are  not 
merely  little  jaunts,  but  outings  of 
from  five  to  fifteen  miles.  None  of 
President  Roosevelt's  predecessors  for 
a  score  of  years  was  fond  of  horse- 
back riding.  General  Arthur,  who  suc- 
ceeded to  the  Presidency  as  did  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  in  the  shadow  of  a  national 
tragedy,  was  a  dignified  and  scholarly 
equestrian.  Grant  was  a  fine  horse- 
man, but  preferred  a  carriage  to 
horse-back  riding.  Lincoln  could  ride 
and  did,  but  his  appearances  on  horse- 
back were  so  infrequent  as  to  be  his- 


Copjrright  1903  by  Waldon  Fawcett 

Yagenka,  Mrs. 


Roosevelt'?  Kentucky-bred  Saddle  Mare 


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Copyright  1903  by  Waldon  Fawceti 

Archie   Roosevelt's   Pony,  Algonquin 


toric.  Pierce,  General  Henry  Harri- 
son, Zachary  Taylor  and  Jackson  were 
in  the  saddle  from  earliest  youth. 
President  Madison,  as  a  native  Vir- 
ginian, was  a  fine  horseman,  while 
Jefferson  always  made  his  journeys 
from  Monticello  to  the  University  of 
Virginia  on  horse-back.  Washington 
was  one  of  the  most  accomplished 
horsemen  of  his  time.  He  was  fond 
of  and  practised   the  chase.     Almost 


invariably  he  rode  one  of  his  finely 
bred  chargers  on  his  trips  from  Mt. 
Vernon  to  Philadelphia  and  return. 

President  Roosevelt^s  residence  in 
the  White  House  has  given  a  marked 
impetus  to  the  practice  in  Washington 
of  all  kinds  of  out-of-door  sports, 
particularly  equestrianism.  In  the  na- 
tional capital  now  are  many  of  the 
best  saddle  horses  to  be  found  any- 
where in  the  United  States. 


602 


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A  Lift  in  Finland 


To  the  Arctic  Circle  in  a  Motor  Car 


By  Charles  J.  Glidden 


Editor's  Note: — Mr.  Glidden  was  one 
of  the  pioneer  telephone  men  of  the  United 
States,  having  been  for  twenty-five  years 
at  the  head  of  some  of  the  largest  tele- 
phone organizations  of  the  country.  He 
is  not  now  engaged  in  any  active  business. 

The  editor  of  the  New  England 
Magazine  having  asked  me  to  write 
a  short  account  of  my  recent  automo- 
bile trip  to  the  Arctic  Circle,  I  will 
try  to  set  down  a  few  of  the  experi- 
ences that  most  impressed  me  during- 
the  progress  of  what  I  believe  was,  in 
many  respects,  an  unique  undertak- 
ing. 

To  begin  by  summarizing,  we  cov- 
ered in  our  trip  six  thousand  six  hun- 
dred and  seventy  miles  of  territory  in 


fifty- four  days,  visiting  fifteen  coun- 
tries, and  were  the  first  to  cross  the 
Arctic  circle  in  a  motor  car.  Our 
automobile,  loaded  with  four  passen- 
gers and  baggage,  weighed  about  four 
thousand  five  hundred  pounds,  and 
was  made  with  an  especially  large 
tonncau  in  order  that  a  steamer  trunk 
holding  a  ten  days*  supply  of  clothing 
might  be  carried.  The  rest  of  our 
higgage  was  sent  ahead  by  train.  We 
carried  one  hundred  sections  of  maps, 
always  marking  out  our  prospective 
route  one  day  in  advance.  In 
Sweden  we  arranged  to  have  fif- 
teen-gallon     carboys      of      gasolene 

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TO    THE    ARCnC    CIRCLE 


placed  at  convenient  points  along 
our  route. 

Starting  at  Liverpool,  on  June  25, 
we  first  made  a  tour  of  one  thousand 
five  hundred  and  ten  miles  in  Ireland, 
during  the  time  of  the  Gordon-Ben- 
nett race.  We  then  returned  to  Holy- 
head, drove  thence  to  Hull,  and 
shipped  the  car  to  Copenhagen,  at 
which  point  the  main  part  of  our  trip 
began.  Our  route  to  Sweden  was 
through  the  northern  part  of  Denmark 
and  across  three  and  one-half  miles  of 
water. 

On  arriving  in  Sweden,  we  toured 
northward,  crossing  the  Arctic  Circle 
and  passing  through  a  country  largely 
inhabited  by  Finns  and  Lapps.  We 
did  not  actually  enter  Lapland,  as  we 
kept  fairly  near  to  the  coast,  but  we 
travelled  miles  north  of  the  parallel  of 
latitude  that  bounds  that  country,  and 
the  border  of  Lapland  was  only  about 
fifty  miles  from  the  point  at  which  we 
crossed  the  Arctic  Circle.     The  most 


"Building  Up"  to  get  on  the  Raft,  to  be  towed  by  Steamer 
ACROSS  A  Five-mile  Ferry  in  Sweden 


northerly  point  that  we  reached  wa> 
the  Swedish  township  of  Kommis,  just 
beyond  the  Arctic  Circle. 

From  Sweden  the  car  was  shipped 
by  water  to  Frederickshaven,  in  north- 
ern Denmark,  and  thence  we  w^ent 
southward  through  Hamburg,  Berlin, 
Carlsbad,  Prague,  Vienna,  Salzburg, 
C)beranimergau,  Bregenz,  Neuhausen, 
Bel  fort,  Paris,  Calais,  Ostend,  Brus- 
sels, Amsterdam,  Rotterdam,  Harwich 
and  Liverpool. 

On  the  whole,  the  most  interesting 
part  of  our  trip  was  the  route  through 
Sweden.     Our  automobile,  being  the 
first  one  ever  seen  in  the  remoter  parts 
of   that   country,   excited   amazement 
and    delight,    especially    during    our 
passage   of   the    nine    hundred   miles 
north  of  latitude  61,   while  we  our- 
selves were  everywhere  accorded  an 
enthusiastic  reception.     In  several  in- 
stances the  people  raised  the  Swedish 
flag  and  dipped  it  as  we  passed.    Even 
the  smallest  towns  and  villages  have 
telephones,      and 
thus  our  progress 
was  made  known 
in  advance. 

The  Swedish 
roads  are  excep- 
tionally "heavy" 
and  bad,  but  this 
drawback  to  trav- 
el was  in  a  meas- 
ure atoned  for 
by  the  excellent 
quality  of  the 
inns  and  hotels 
that  we  found  at 
the  end  of  each 
day's  journey. 
In  northern  Swe- 
den these  inns 
are      subsidize 


Digitized  by 


Google 


IN    A   MOTOR   CAR 


605 


by  the  govern- 
ment, are  clean 
and  comfortable, 
and  moderate  in 
their  charges. 
We  found  the 
temperature  in 
the  extreme 
north  about 
twenty  degrees 
colder  than  in 
London,  and  we 
had  a  great  deal 
of  rain  through- 
out the  entire 
trip,  especially 
between  H  a  m- 
burg  and  Ber- 
lin, but  as  we 
were  provided 
with  warm  clothing  and  complete 
rubber  suits,  we  experienced  no  ill 
effects  from  the  weather. 

Originally  we  had  intended  to  drive 
through  Norway,  and  had  obtained  the 
necessary  permits  from  the  Nor- 
wegian authorities,  but  after  the  Paris- 
Madrid  race  these  were  cancelled,  or 
conditions  of  a  practically  prohibitive 
character  were  introduced. 

One  of  these  conditions  was  that  the 
road  we  were  to  take  was  to  be  pub- 
lished in  the  local  newspapers  along 
the  route  six  days  in  advance,  another 
was  that  the  sheriffs  of  the  towns 
through  which  we  intended  to  pass 
should  be  notified  of  the  exact  hour  of 
our  intended  arrival,  and  a  third  that 
a  courier  on  horseback  should  be  sent 
ahead  to  notify  the  inhabitants  of  our 
approach.  One  good  result  of  our 
abandoning  Norway  in  favor  of 
Sweden  was  that  we  were  thereby 
enabled  to  reach  a  much  more 
northerly  point   than   we   could   have 


Last  Church  this  Side  of  the  Arctic  Circle- 
in  Sweden 


-most  Northern 


reached  had  we  taken  the  Norwegian 
route. 

The  loneliness  of  some  of  the  roads, 
especially  in  Northern  Sweden,  im- 
pressed us  greatly.  Sometimes  in 
going  a  distance  of  fifty  miles  we  saw 
only  one  person.  Once  in  going  one 
hundred  and  twenty  miles  we  met  but 
three  vehicles,  and  they  were  mail 
wagons.  In  all,  we  went  through  nine 
hundred  miles  of  dense  forest. 

Only  once,  in  traversing  these  soli- 
tudes, did  we  lose  our  way,  and  that 
was  occasioned  by  our  endeavoring  to 
find  a  road  which  was  marked  on  the 
map,  but  which  did  not  exist.  It  had 
been  laid  out  and  surveyed,  but  not 
constructed,  and  though  we  crossed  its 
line  three  times,  we  of  course  never 
found  it. 

We  took  very  few  photographs  of 
the  people,  partly  because  we  made  it 
a  rule  never  to  photograph  a  subject 
without  his  permission.  The  Lapps 
nrc  very  sensitive  in  this  resjject,  and 

Jigitized  by  V^OOQIC 


rx)6 


TO    THE    ARCTIC    CIRCLE 


immediately  notice  and  resent  any  par- 
ticular attention  paid  to  them. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  things 
about  our  trip  was  that  we  had  no  dis- 
agreeable experiences  and  no  acci- 
dents. The  only  breakage  in  the  ma- 
chinery of  the  car  was  that  of  a  pump 
spindle,  which  occasioned  one-half 
hour's  delay,  and  we  had  but  six  tire 


change  for  one  of  the  later  model, 
and  this  year  made  a  similar  exchange. 
I  shall  keep  the  car  that  I  have  now, 
a  specially  built  i6-horse  pow-er 
Napier. 

In  conclusion  I  will  say  that  in  my 
estimation  automobiling  is  the  best 
and  cheapest  way  of  seeing  a  country. 
I. caving  out  of  consideration  the  orig- 


HiGHEST  Point  Reached— about  a  Mile  North  of  the  Arctic  Circle 


punctures.  This  immunity  from  acci- 
dents I  attribute  partly  to  the  watchful 
care  of  Mr.  Charles  Thomas,  the  Lon- 
don mechanic  who  accompanied  us, 
and  partly  to  the  excellent  construction 
of  the  car  itself. 

This  is  my  third  long  annual  auto- 
mobile trip.  In  1 90 1  I  bought  my 
first     car,     in     1902     made     an     ex- 


inal  cost  of  the  machine,  four  people 
can  travel  in  this  way  quite  as  eco- 
nomically as  they  could  by  rail,  and 
much  more  cheaply  than  they  could  by 
carriage. 

For  the  benefit  of  those  who  like 
exact  information,  I  append  a  table  of 
statistics  which  T  compiled  during  the 
trip : — 

Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


THE   CROWNING   TOUCH 


607 


COUNTRIES 


Miles 
1901 


Austria 

Bavaria 

Belgium  . . . . 
Bohemia..  •• 
Denmark. .. 
England  . . . . 

France 

Germany  . . . 
Holland..... 

Ireland 

Italy. 

Spain 

Sweden 

Switzerland. 
Wales.. 


Total 

Days  on  the  road... 
Hours  on  the  road  . 


650 
1,350 


2,000 

26 

120 


Miles 
1903 


250 


132 

2,700 

608 


508 
30 


897 


5,125 

38 

260 


Miles 
X903 


295 
160 

306 
365 
515 
580 
240 
1,510 


1,540 
200 
267 


6,670 

54 

390 


Toul 


627 

295 
160 

315 
306 

1,147 
4.565 
1,188 

240 
1,510 

508 

30 

1,540 

1,097 

267 


13,795 
118 
770 


Condition 
of  Roads 


Good 

Good 

Bad 

Fair 

Excellent 

Excellent 

Excellent 

Good 

Good 

Good 

Good 

Bad 

Bad 

Good 

Excellent 


I  estimated  the  number  of  cities, 
towns  and  settlements  passed  through 
as  4,000,  vehicles  passed   as    10,000, 


people  on  the  road  3,000,000,  hotels 
stayed  at  236,  and  meals  taken  at  dif- 
ferent inns  or  cafes  472. 


The  Crowning  Touch 

By  Eugene  C.  Dolson 

IN  girlhood's  unconsidered  ways, 
She  walked  from  care  apart; 
I  guessed  not,  in  those  bygone  days, 
The  sweetness  of  her  heart. 

But  while  to-night,  in  woman  wise, 
She  bends  her  child  above, 

I  read  in  those  deep,  soulful  eyes, 
Her  depth  of  mother  love. 


Digitized  by 


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608 


By  Zitella  Cocke 


A  HUNDRED    Red-Coats   on    the    hill, 
Two  hundred  in  the  vale, 
The  woods  repeat  their  war-cry  shrill, 

"Hurrah !    We're  on  his  trail. 
Hurrah!  lay  bridle  loose  on  mane 

And  boldly  urge  your  steeds, 
The  Swamp- Fox  we'll  not  hunt  in  vain. 

When  gallant  Tarleton  leads, — 
Let  but  our  chief  that  rebel  see. 
The  Fox  shall  hang  to  highest  tree !" 

Sharp  rowels  stung  the  horses'  flanks, 

Like  mad  they  dashed  away; 
The  eager  riders  broke  their  ranks 

Exultant  for  the  fray. 
Across  the  trackless  bog  and  fen, 

Down  slopes  and  steep  hillside. 
O'er  field  and  fence,  three  hundred  men 

Rode  fast  as  men  could  ride. 
They  hunted  hard  till  fall  of  night. 
The  Swamp-Fox  never  once  in  sight ! 

Then  by  his  worn  and  willing  steed. 

Each  horseman  sank  to  rest, — 
So  soft  the  wind  sighed  thro'  the  reed. 

The  bird  slept  on  her  nest, — 
The  mist  rose  slowly  from  the  swamp. 

Till  like  a  cloud  it  stood. 
And  not  one  trace  of  martial  pomp. 

In  that  black  solitude, 
For  riders  brave  and  chargers  strong 
Sleep  well,  who've  galloped  all  day  long ! 


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oKri  (#aeii.erif  of  f^c>g>ofutioriar^  ©a^/^ 


Hark !  hark !  what  means  that  stealthy  tread  ? 

Perchance  some  wild  thing  creeps 
In  hunger  round  the  leaf-strewn  bed, 

Where  weary  warrior  sleeps. 
Yet  see  those  forms  stalwart  and  grim, — 

How  silently  they  pass, 
From    under   moss-entangled   limb, 

Athwart  the  tall  wire-grass!* 
Nor  clang  of  arms,  nor  word,  nor  sound, 
So  cautiously  they  tread  the  ground  I 

On,  on  they  come, — aye,  nearer  still, 

See — sixty  rifles  gleam  ! 
The  sleeping  Briton  hears  no  ill 

Nor  fears  it  in  his  dream. 
They  kneel,  they  fire, — the  woodlands  ring, 

The  dark  morass  and  glen, 
As  in  hot  haste   to  saddle  spring 

Bold  Marion  and  his  men! 
Away  they  fly, — ten  miles  away, 
And  still  an  hour  to  break  of  day ! 

Outspoke  proud  Tarleton's  rage  and  scorn, 

"Haste,  give  our  dead  a  grave, 
And  then  to  horse  with  rise  of  morn, 

To  hunt  the  traitor-knave. 
From  North  to  South  the  country  scour. 

From  beach  to  mountain  rocks, 
Our  vengeance  sure  shall  find  the  hour 

To  trap  that  cunning  Fox, — 
A  thousand  pounds  in  George's  name 
To  him  who  snares  the  wary  game!" 


Digitized  by 


609 

Google 


610  HUNTING   THE    SWAMP-FOX 

Forth  in  fierce  wrath  the  hunters  ride, 

With  Tarleton  at  their  head, — 
Down  by  the  Mingo's  tawny  tide, — 

Along  Edisto's  bed, — 
Two  hundred  more  with  Wemyss  strain 

Up  high  hills  of  Santee, 
And  back  across  the  swamps  again 

To  pine  lands  of  Pedee, — 
As  maple  leaves  in  Autumn's  hand, 
So  flash  the  Red-Coats  through  the  land ! 

They  hunt, — they  halt, — they  track, — they  turn. 

Till  hope  is  well-nigh  flown. 
When,  lol  in  field  thro'  arching  fern 

See  Marion  ! — and  alone ! 
"Give  chase !"  they  cry,  "we  know  the  ground, 

A  trench  so  wide  and  deep, 
At  further  end,  no  horse  can  bound 

And  never  rider  leap. 
Up !  up !  spur  on,  now,  no  mishap. 
The  Swamp-Fox  sure  is  in  our  trap! 

Forward  to  right, — to  left, — to  rear, — 

They  gallop,  thrice  a  score, — 
With  swing  of  sword,  with  curse'  and  jeer, 

They  press  him  hard  and  sore. 
But  Marion's  steed  of  matchless  speed 

By  master's  soul  is  fired. 
He  feels  his  rider's  direful  need, 

And  flies  like  bird  inspired 
Across  the  trench, — where  Marion  doffs 
His  hat  in  answer  to  their  scoffs. 
With  farewell  shot,  and  proud  "Good-day, 
My  merry  gentlemen  !" — while  they 
Who  chased  with  blatant  brag  and  boast, 
Stand  dazed, — as  they  had  seen  a  ghost ! 


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Miss  Barber's  Nephew 

By  Elsie  Carmichael,  author  of  "A  New  England  Cranford" 


MISS  BARBER  was  our 
nearest  neighbor  when 
Ralph  and  I  went  to 
Kelmscott  to  live  on  our 
abandoned  farm.  Our  gardens  ad- 
joined, with  only  a  box  hedge  be- 
tween, so  that  our  trailing  nastur- 
tiums ran  over  the  low  barrier  to  join 
forces  with  her  sweet  peas,  and  her 
apple  trees  leaned  over  and  dropped 
votive  offerings  into  our  orchard.  I 
became  very  fond  of  Miss  Barber 
before  we  had  lived  th^e  a  fortnight, 
and  I  always  ran  out  eagerly  to  meet 
her  when  I  saw  her  little  bobbing 
curls  and  her  spreading  hoopskirts 
coming  down  the  path,  for  Miss  Bar- 
ber was  an  anachronism,  w)earing  the 
finery  of  a  distant  time  just  as  she  re- 
tained the  opinions  of  her  grand- 
father. 

She  lived  in  a  quaint  hip-roofed 
house  that  was  haunted  by  the  faint 
fragrance  of  lavender  and  rose-leaves 
and  overflowing  with  old  furniture, 
ancestral  portraits  and  priceless  china. 
Never  in  two  hundred  years  had  a 
mistress  of  that  house  thrown  away  or 
lost  or  broken  a  single  thing  she 
owned.  Why  is  it  we  of  this  genera- 
tion can  never  save  any  heirlooms  for 
our  descendants  ?  Our  old  ball  gowns 
either  drop  to  pieces  or  are  given 
away  and  our  china  is  offered  up  on 
the  altar  of  domestic  service.  But  at 
Miss  Barber's  every  hoopskirt,  every 
parasol,  every  satin  ball  slipper  that 
was  ever  owned  in  the   family   was 


stowed  away  in  the  old  trunks  and 
chests  under  the  eaves  in  the  attic. 

In  striking  contrast  to  this  dainty 
relic  of  the  last  century  was  her 
neighbor  on  the  other  side,  Mrs. 
Deacon  Sumner,  who  represented  the 
Philistine  element  in  Kelmscott.  She 
had  insisted  on  modernizing  the 
Deacon's  house  until  it  was  a  strange 
conglomeration  of  the  old  colonial  and 
cheap  gingerbread  style  of  architec- 
ture. There  was  a  front  door  of  imi- 
tation oak;  cheap  ornate  stair  rails 
had  ousted  the  plain  ones  with  their 
simple  quaint  lines,  and  a  doorbell 
took  the  place  of  the  beautiful  old 
knocker  which  she  had  sold  to  some 
"city  folks,"  to  the  secret  sorrow  of 
the  Deacon. 

"Fm  real  surprised  at  you  and  Mr. 
Dexter  likin'  old  things,"  she  said  one 
day.  "I  said  to  Deacon  Sumner  when 
I  heard  yoti  was  comin',  *Now  that 
city  folks  is  comin'  in  I  hope  that 
Kelmscott  will  be  up  to  date.  Maybe 
it  will  be  a  real  swell  summer  resort 
one  of  these  days.'  I  thought  you'd 
probably  want  electric  lights  and  all 
the  things  that  would  improve  the 
village." 

"Heaven  forbid,"  Ralph  ejaculated 
low,  but  fortunately  Mrs.  Deacon 
Sumner  did  not  hear  him.  She  would 
have  considered  it  swearing. 

Provoking  as  she  was  at  times  I 
always  enjoyed  a  call  from  Mrs.  Sum- 
ner, and  one  bleak  February  day, 
when  I  saw  her  coming  slowly  up  the 


Digitized  by 


Cooglc 


612 


MISS    BARBER'S    NEPHEW 


path,  I  ran  downstairs  to  open  the 
door  and  take  her  in  to  the  bright  fire 
in  the  sitting  room. 

"Yes,  it's  a  cold  day,"  she  admitted, 
as  she  slowly  sank  into  a  low  chair 
with  many  creakings  of  its  frame. 
She  spread  her  hands  to  the  warmth 
and  caught  her  breath,  for  she  was 
very  stout  and  was  usually  in  a  state 
of  breathlessness  for  several  minutes 
after  she  had  made  any  exertion. 

"Yes,  it's  cold,  but  spring's  comin' 
early  this  year.  Mis'  Dexter.  Last 
week  was  ground  hog  day,  and  no  re- 
spectable ground  hog  could  ever  find 
his  shadder  that  day,  you  remember. 
Besides  that  the  snow  come  before 
Thanksgivin'.  Yes,  we'll  have  an 
early  spring,  I've  felt  it  in  my  bones 
all  year." 

"That  is  delightful,"  I  cried,  and 
had  visions  of  violets  and  anemones 
in  certain  sunny  hollows  I  knew.  I 
was  even  buried  in  plans  for  my  gar- 
den when  Mrs.  Sumner  resumed  the 
conversation. 

"I've  just  been  in  to  see  Miss  Bar- 
ber," she  explained,  "and  I  don't 
think  she  looks  well  at  all.  'You  look 
kinder  peaked.  Miss  Barber,'  says  I, 
and  she  says,  'Well,  Mis'  Sumner,  I 
don't  feel  well/  To  tell  the  truth, 
Mis'  Dexter,  that  woman  is  just  wor- 
ryin'  herself  to  death  about  her 
nephew." 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  Miss 
Barber's  nephew  ?"  I  inquired  politely, 
before  I  realized  that  I  had  probably 
launched  her  on  a  sea  of  gossip. 

Mrs.  Sumner  settled  herself  in  the 
rocking  chair  and  loosened  her  bon- 
net strings.  "Well,  you  know,  Mis' 
Dexter,"  she  began  complacently, 
"last   fall   Miss   Barber   got   a   letter 


from  her  nephew  in  New  York.  She 
ain't  seen  him  since  he  was  a  little 
boy,  as  long  as  she's  led  such  a  retired 
life  up  here  and  never  gone  down  to 
see  her  folks  at  all.  Fact  is  all  the 
family's  dead  now  exceptin'  this 
nephew  and  he  suddenly  got  real  in- 
t'rested  in  huntin'  up  the  family 
records.  That  was  last  fall  when  you 
was  away  in  New  York.  Seems 
funny  he  ain't  never  taken  no  int'rest 
before,  but  at  any  rate  he  wrote  her  a 
letter  and  he  says  he  was  comin'  up 
to  make  her  a  little  visit.  Well,  Miss 
Barber  was  real  flustrated.  I  ain't 
never  seen  her  so  put  out — she's  usu- 
ally so  calm.  She  come  over  to  my 
house  the  afternoon  she  got  the  letter 
and  she  shown  it  to  me  and  she  kep' 
sayin',  *0  Mis'  Sumner,  whatever 
should  I  do  with  a  man  in  the  house  ? 
I  can't  do  it,  I  can't  do  it.  It  makes 
me  just  sick  to  think  of  it.  What 
should  I  do  with  him?'  Really,  Mis' 
Dexter,  it  was  real  pathetic,  besides 
bein'  real  laughable,  to  see  Miss  Bar- 
ber wringin'  her  hands  over  that 
nephew  of  hers. 

"  'He  wouldn't  be  a  mite  of  bother, 
probably,'  I  said  to  her.  'Of  course 
you  ain't  used  to  havin'  a  man  in  the 
house,  but  remember  he's  your 
nephew,  your  own  brother's  child,  and 
he  is  comin'  on  business  you  might 
say  and  it  would  keep  him  busy  all 
the  time,'  but  she  didn't  seem  to  pay 
any  attention  to  me  and  kep'  wringin' 
her  hands  and  sayin',  'What  shall  I 
do?  What  shall  I  do?'  'I  don't  see 
how  you  can  refuse  to  let  your  own 
brother's  child  come,'  I  said  to  her 
quite  sharp-like,  for  she  made  me  real 
provoked.  'Well,  I  s'pose  I'll  have  to,' 
she  said,  as  she  went  out  the  door. 


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MISS    BARBER'S    NEPHEW 


613 


'But  it  makes  me  downright  sick  to 
think  of  it/ 

"Well,  Mis'  Dexter,  she  kep'  that 
up  for  several  weeks,  gettin'  thinner 
and  paler  and  sayin',  'What  shall  I  do 
with  him  if  he  comes  ?'  until  I  thought 
she  was  goin'  clean  daft.  I  got  so  I 
didn't  want  to  hear  about  Miss  Bar- 
ber's nephew.  Then  one  day  she  come 
down  sick  and  sent  her  Alviry  over  to 
tell  me  to  come  quick.  The  doctor 
said  it  was  the  grip  but  I  knew  it  was 
worryin'  about  her  nephew.  She 
seemed  real  happy  about  bein'  sick 
and  her  eyes  were  shinin'  bright  as  a 
young  girl's,  as  she  said,  *0  Mis' 
Sumner,  I  want  you  should  write  to 
my  nephew  and  tell  him  I'm  too  sick 
to  have  him  come.  He  was  comin' 
next  week.  Tell  him  I  shall  have  to 
postpone  his  visit  till  spring  and  that 
Kelmscott  is  much  prettier  in  spring 
anyhow,  and  I  know  he  will  enjoy  it 
more  then.' 

"Well,  I  wrote  that  letter,  Mis' 
Dexter,  and  she  got  well  -right  off  and 
seemed  to  have  a  load  taken  off  her 
mind.  She's  be'n  so  well  all  winter, 
but  these  first  days  when  the  snow 
begins  to  melt  and  you  feel  that  spring 
ain't  very  far  off  I've  noticed  Miss 
Barber's  gettin'  peaked.  I  noticed  it 
right  away  and  I  thought  trouble  was 
a-comin',  so  I  went  in  to  see  her  to- 
day and  I  says,  says  I,  *Miss  Barber, 
you  do  look  real  peaked.'  She 
didn't  give  me  no  satisfaction  at  first 
and  then  she  sort  of  burst  out,  'Well, 
Mis'  Sumner,  I  don't  feel  well. 
Spring's  a-comin',  and  I  s'pose  I'll 
have  to  ask  my  nephew  up  to  look 
over  the  family  records,  and  I  declare. 
Mis*  Sumner,  I  never  thought  I'd 
dread  a  spring  comin'  so  much.     It 


just  makes  me  sick.'  'Well,'  I  said 
'Miss  Barber,  if  you  want  my  advice 
you'll  have  him  come  right  off  and 
git  it  over  with.  It's  just  like  when 
my  Adoniram  has  to  take  castor  oil, 
I'll  say,  'It's  better  to  hold  your  nose 
and  swaller  it  quick  than  to  stand 
round  thinkin'  about  it  and  smellin'  it 
so  long  beforehand.'  She  acted  sort 
of  mad  then  and  thought  I'd  insulted 
her,  comparin'  her  nephew  to  castor 
oil  that  way,  but  I  didn't  mean  no 
harm,  o'  course.  It's  just  my  way  o' 
comparin'  things." 

"Is  she  going  to  ask  her  nephew?" 
I  inquired,  trying  to  suppress  my 
laughter. 

"Yes,  he's  comin'  next  week,"  she 
replied. 

"Just  the  time  Natalie  comes,"  I 
said  to  myself.  "If  he  is  only  a  nice 
nephew,  perhaps  we  can  help  amuse 
him." 

After  Mrs.  Sumner  had  betaken 
herself  off,  after  a  two  hours'  visita- 
tion, I  ran  over  to  see  poor  Miss  Bar- 
ber^ She  was  sitting  in  the  window, 
looking  out  over  the  twilit  garden, 
where  the  drifts  had  settled  into  low 
soggy  mounds  full  of  sticks  and  dirt 
that  the  winds  had  swept  into  them. 
Nature  was  in  her  most  untidy  mood 
just  then,  though  the  spring  house- 
cleaning  would  soon  begin  and  all 
would  be  fresh  and  sweet  and  clean 
again.  Miss  Barber  did  look  "peaked," 
as  Mrs.  Sumner  had  said,  but  she 
brightened  up  again  when  she  saw  me 
and  poured  all  her  woes  into  my  sym- 
pathetic ear. 

"It's  the  most  providential  thing," 
I  said,  when  she  had  folded  her  hands 
and  said  for  the  last  time,  "What  shall 
I  do  with  him,  Mrs.  Dexter?"     "A 


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young  cousin  of  mine,  Natalie  Ran- 
dolph, is  to  come  for  a  long  visit  next 
week,  and  if  you  don't  know  what  to 
do  with  him.  Miss  Barber,  you  must 
send  your  nephew  over  and  we  will 
try  to  make  him  have  a  good  time, 
ril  tell  my  husband  to  call  on  him  as 
soon  as  he  comes.  A  man  will  know 
just  what  to  do  with  him,  and  I  am 
sure  he  will  have  a  good  time.  If  he 
cares  for  family  heirlooms  you  know 
he  will  simply  revel  in  this  dear  old 
house,  anyway." 

"Oh,  rd  take  it  real  kind  and  neigh- 
borly if  Mr.  Dexter  would  come 
over,"  she  said.  "And,  Mrs.  Dex- 
ter,"— she  hesitated  and  looked  out  of 
the  window  for  a  moment, — "I  wish 
you'd  tell  me  what  kind  of  food  men 
like.  You  see  I've  lived  alone  so 
long  and  I  have  a  real  delicate  appe- 
tite myself,  and  I  know  most  men  like 
hearty  food,  and  I  don't  really  know 
what  would  appeal  to  his  taste." 

I  knew  that  with  all  her  old-time 
opinions  that  went  with  her  old-fash- 
ioned crinolines  and  reticules.  Miss 
Barber  had  retained  the  dainty  appe- 
tite that  she  was  brought  up  to  con- 
sider lady-like.  She  only  nibbled 
daintily  at  some  little  tidbit,  and  I 
knew  she  would  be  horrified  if  she 
could  see  me  partaking  of  hearty  beef- 
steaks and  roasts.  I  could  not  see  her 
nephew  starved. 

"I'm  glad  you  spoke  of  it.  Miss  Bar- 
ber," I  said,  "I'll  make  out  a  list  of  all 
the  things  Mr.  Dexter  especially  likes 
and  perhaps  that  will  help  matters." 
It  ended  in  my  making  out  a  menu  for 
every  meal  of  the  three  days  she  ex- 
pected to  play  hostess. 

Natalie  was  to  come  to  us  on  the 
first  of  March.     For  two  weeks  the 


snow  had  been  melting  and  Ofi  die 
last  night  in  February  a  drenching 
shower  washed  away  the  dingy  drifts 
and  left  lakes  in  the  meadows  where 
the  grass  began  to  look  faintly  gjeen. 
I  knew  that  spring  had  come  the  mo- 
ment I  opened  my  eyes  that  morning. 
The  sky  was  so  blue  and  the  air  so 
soft  as  it  drifted  in  at  the  open  win- 
dow that  I  felt  as  though  a  great  bar- 
rier had  been  passed  and  we  had  left 
the  winter  behind  and  crossed  over 
into  spring. 

"Don't  the  red  gods  call  you  out  to- 
day?" I  asked  at  breakfast,  as  I 
poured  Ralph's  coflfee. 

"Call!"  he  exclaimed.  "They  are 
simply  shouting  to  us  to  come  out. 
If  you  don't  mind  getting  soaked  I 
would  like  to  have  a  good  stroll  with 
you  before  Natalie  descends  upon  us 
bag  and  baggage." 

"She  won't  be  here  until  the  CMie- 
thirty,"  I  deliberated,  "and  we  can 
have  a  good  walk  and  bring  in  some 
pussy  willows   for  the  fireplace." 

I  don't  know  where  the  delicious 
spring  morning  went.  We  forgot 
time,  and  we  forgot  Natalie,  as  we 
wandered  about  in  the  soft,  warm  air 
over  sunny  fields  full  of  new-n^de 
brooks,  that  foamed  like  mad  things 
in  their  hurry  to  reach  the  valley. 
Everything  was  so  fresh-washed  af- 
ter the  drenching  rain,  and  the  sk)', 
the  cleanest  of  all,  made  a  blue  back- 
ground for  the  trees  that  already  were 
growing  feathery.  Over  across  the 
fields  we  heard  a  robin  fluting,  and  in 
an  elm  tree  above  us,  a  spot  of  blue 
against  the  azure  sky,  a  bluebird 
swung  on  a  tiny  branch.  We  were 
filled  with  the  joy  of  Ufe;  it  was 
enough  just  to  be  alive  and  breathe 


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the  perfumes  of  spring  and  look  and 
listen  and  play  in  the  sunshine ;  every- 
thing else  fell  away  and  we  were  chil- 
dren again.  What  mattered  it  if  we 
were  wet?  Nature  was  playing  with 
us  that  morning,  and  if  she  is  a  rough 
playfellow  sometimes,  who  cares,  if 
you  can  feel  her  dear  warm  heart  beat- 
ing underneath. 

Suddenly  the  sun  high  over  our 
heads  warned  us  that  it  was  past  noon, 
and  we  must  be  tramping  home  if  we 
intended  to  be  ready  to  greet  Natalie 
in  civilized  costume.  We  had  gone 
farther  than  we  meant,  and  it  took  us 
a  long,  long  time  to  find  our  way 
back.  There  were  so  many  new 
brooks  to  cross  that  seemed  to  have 
sprung  out  of  the  ground  since  we 
started  out,  but  at  last,  breathless  and 
happy  as  two  children,  we  climbed 
the  stone  wall  and  found  ourselves  in 
the  fields  back  of  our  own  house. 

"There  is  nothing  like  the  good  out- 
doors, is  there?"  said  Ralph  as  he 
helped  me  over  the  stile  at  the  garden 
wall.  "I  could  never  be  shut  in  by 
brick  walls  again.  I  should  always 
have  a  hunger  for  the  freshness  and 
openness  of  the  sky  and  the  hills  with 
the  wind  on  them.  Why  don't  people 
let  the  conventional  things  go,  and  be 
simple  and  childlike  and  go  out  and 
play  and  be  happy." 

We  walked  around  the  house  on  the 
little  flagged  path  through  the  shrub- 
bery that  had  attracted  us  so  on  that 
first  visit  we  ever  paid  to  our  aban- 
doned farm,  and  I  was  about  to  an- 
swer Ralph,  when  I  stopped,  horror- 
stricken.  Down  the  village  street 
toward  the  house  came  a  tall,  slender 
girl  in  a  blue  tailor  gown,  who  was 
talking  in  a  most  animated  way  to  a 


young  man  who  was  carrying  her  suit 
case.     I  seized  Ralph's  arm. 

"It's  Natalie!"  I  gasped.  "Think 
of  greeting  her  in  this  way!" 

But  by  that  time  the  approaching 
couple  had  caught  sight  of  us  stand- 
ing guiltily  beside  the  veranda,  cov- 
ered with  mud  and  soaked  with  water. 

"Constance,"  she  cried,  coming 
forward  with  outstretched  hands. 
"Is  this  the  house?  We  were  not 
sure.  Isn't  it  charming  and  isn't  it 
jolly  to  be  together  again."  She  gave 
me  a  glad  hug,  notwithstanding  the 
muddy,  bedraggled  object  I  was,  while 
Ralph  tried  to  explain  that  we  had 
gone  out  to  walk  without  our  watches 
and  had  lost  track  of  the  time. 

"Oh,  don't  apologize  at  all,"  she 
cried  joyfully.  "It  was  all  delight- 
ful, but  first  I  want  to  present  Mr. 
Barber  to  you.  I  believe  he  is  com- 
ing to  visit  his  aunt,  who  is  a  neigh- 
bor of  ypurs." 

The  attractive  young  man  with  the 
suit  case  came  up  and  shook  hands 
with  us. 

"Are  you  Miss  Barber's  nephew?" 
I  inquired.  "I  am  so  glad  to  meet 
you.  We  have  heard  so  much  about 
you." 

Ralph  looked  as  though  he  could 
control  himself  no  longer,  but  a  cough 
discreetly  hid  any  other  sound. 

"You  see,"  Natalie  began  to  ex- 
plain, "Mr.  Barber  found  I  was  com- 
ing on  this  train  and  so  he  decided  it 
would  be  jolly  for  us  to  come  to- 
gether, especially  as  we  knew  we  were 
to  visit  next  door  to  one  another — 
and — so — so — really  we  had  no  trouble 
at  all."  The  color  stole  up  into  her 
face.  "I  didn't  mind  at  all  about  your 
not  meeting  me.     I  knew  I  could  find 


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MISS    BARBER'S    NEPHEW 


the  way  perfectly — the  village  street 
is  so  charming,  isn't  it,  Constance?  I 
don't  wonder  you  rave  about  Kelm- 
scott — Cranford  you  call  it,  don't 
you?" 

"Do  you  know,"  said  Ralph,  when 
we  were  dressing  for  luncheon,  "I  be- 
lieve that  nephew  of  Miss  Barber's 
has  come  down  here  solely  to  see 
Natalie." 

"Oh,  no,"  I  said,  "for  don't  you  re- 
member that  he  had  made  his  plans  to 
come  last  fall  and  Miss  Barber  made 
him  postpone  his  visit  ?" 

"Yes,  but  that  just  proves  it,"  cried 
Ralph  triumphantly.  "For  do  you 
not  remember  that  we  had  asked 
Natalie  to  come  here  for  a  few  days 
on  the  way  to  New  York  last  fall,  and 
at  the  last  minute  she  had  the  grip 
and  could  not  come?" 

"How  very  interesting!"  I  cried. 
"Wouldn't  it  be  delightful  to  have  a 
love  affair  going  on  in  our  own  house  ? 
Dear  me,  it  would  take  me  back  to 
my  youth." 

"Dear  old  days,"  he  said,  "It  is 
nice  to  be  reminded  of  those  long-ago 
days.  It  is  always  such  a  pleasure  to 
see  the  young  enjoying  them- 
selves, isn't  it?  Well,  we  are  to  play 
matchmakers,  are  we?  Or  shall  we 
severely  discountenance  such  schem- 
ing young  people?  Imagine  the  im- 
pudence of  them  just  coming  to  visit 
their  unsuspecting  country  relatives  so 
they  can  play  together!  I  want  you 
to  find  out  Natalie's  motives,  Con- 
stance." j    *  ! 

But  I  could  get  no  satisfaction  out 
of  Natalie,  who  opened  her  big 
brown  eyes  in  innocent  surprise  when 
I  asked  her  leading  questions.  Why, 
yes,  Mr.  Barber  was  a  friend  of  hers 


— she  knew  him  very  well — but  it 
just  happened  that  they  found  they 
were  to  be  in  Kelmscott  at  the  same 
time.  Of  course  she  would  not  see 
much  of  him,  as  he  had  ccwne  on  busi- 
ness and  would  be  very  much  occu- 
pied. 

However,  Mr.  Barber's  visit  length- 
ened until  he  had  more  than  consimied 
all  the  menus  I  made  out  for  his  long- 
suffering  aunt,  but  still  he  did  not  go. 
Although  he  was  very  busy  hunting 
up  his  family  records,  yet  he  found 
time  to  walk  with  Natalie  in  the  morn- 
ing, drive  with  Natalie  in  the  after- 
noon, and  spend  almost  every  evening 
in  our  cosey  den,  smoking  with  Ralph 
and  reading  or  talking  with  Natalie 
and  me. 

From  the  b^inning  we  had  to  ad- 
mit that  he  was  a  distinct  addition  to 
Kelmscott.  He  was  fond  of  Nature 
and  books  and  beautiful  things,  and 
he  was  a  connoisseur  in  nonsense 
rhymes  and  passed  with  flying  colors 
the  rigid  examination  Natalie  and  I 
gave  him  to  see  if  he  had  the  correct 
sense  of  humor. 

"Yes,  he  is  one  of  us,"  I  announced 
to  Ralph.  "He  has  not  only  a  sense 
of  nonsense,  but  a  sense  of  humor,  too, 
which  is  a  distinct  thing,  you  know. 
Besides  that  he  adores  Kenneth 
Grahame  and  the  Brushwood  Boy  and 
Sidney  Lanier,  and  those  are  my  final 
tests." 

I  had  felt  that  we  were  almost  self- 
ish in  our  eagerness  to  keep  Mr.  Bar- 
ber in  Kelmscott,  when  I  thought  of 
his  poor  aunt ;  but  I  found  my  sympa- 
thy had  been  quite  wasted,  when  I 
went  over  to  see  her  one  day,  after 
sending  her  nephew  and  Natalie  for 
a  tramp.    I  had  never  seen  Miss  Bar- 


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ber  look  so  young  and  happy.  She 
was  all  a-flutter  when  she  came  to 
meet  me,  her  stiff  crinoline  rustling 
and  her  little  cuds  bobbing  with  ex- 
citement. 

"Do  you  know,  Mrs.  Dexter,"  she 
confided  before  I  went,  "I  think  it*s 
so  nice  to  have  a*  man  around.  Why, 
that  nephew  of  mine  is  so  handy  about 
things  and  he  is  so  attentive  to  me. 
Why,  Mrs.  Dexter,"  she  lowered  her 
voice  and  blushed,  "It's  almost  like 
having  a  lover.  I  should  like  to  keep 
him  always." 

After  that  I  had  no  more  scruples 
about  urging  him  to  stay,  and  al- 
though he  went  to  New  York  for  a 
few  days  every  week,  yet  the  week- 
end he  spent  in  Kelmscott.  The 
spring  passed  only  too  quickly, 
while  we  walked  and  fished  and  read 
together  in  our  beautiful  little  comer 
of  Arcady.  The  apple-blossoms  came 
and  went  and  the  roses  in  my  garden 
were  in  bud,  when  one  day,  however, 
there  came  a  sudden  end  to  our  pretty 
spring  idyl. 

I  was  sitting  in  my  cool  bedroom, 
whose  windows  looked  out  into  infi- 
nite depths  of  green  leaves,  when  I 
was  startled  to  hear  excited  voices  in 
the  path  through  the  shrubbery  be- 
low. Natalie  and  Paul  Barber  were 
coming  from  the  garden  to  the  front 
piazza. 

"But,  Natalie,  listen,"  he  was  plead- 
ing. 

"No,  I  don't  want  to  hear  any 
more,"  she  said,  and  there  was  a'  sus- 
picion of  tears  in  her  voice.  "I  am 
sorry  and  disappointed,  and  you  have 
made  me  very  miserable." 

I  heard  the  piazza  door  close  with  a 
suggestion  of  a  bang,   and   Natalie 


went  upstairs  like  a  small  whirlwind. 
Mr.  Barber  walked  down  the  path 
past  the  syringa  bushes  with  a  most 
disconsolate  air.  I  could  not  imagine 
what  it  all  meant.  They  had  started 
for  a  walk  early  in  the  morning  in  the 
best  of  spirits. 

No  satisfaction  could  I  get  from 
Natalie,  who  came  in  to  luncheon  in 
her  gayest  mood,  apparently.  She 
laughed  and  talked  in  her  most  flip- 
pant way,  and  if  I  thought  that  she 
overdid  it  sometimes,  and  that  her 
laugh  rang  hollow,  yet  it  was  only  be- 
cause I  was  looking  for  an  undercur- 
rent of  something  else. 

That  afternoon  I  saw  Mr.  Barber 
driving  away  from  his  aunt's  with  his 
suit  case,  and  when  I  went  into  Nata- 
lie's room  a  few  minutes  later  I  found 
her  sitting  behind  the  closed  blinds  of 
the  window  with  eyes  bright  with 
tears.  She  crushed  a  damp  wad  of 
handkerchief  in  her  hand  and  turned 
to  me  almost  defiantly. 

"Natalie,  why  has  Mr.  Barber  gone 
away  without  saying  good-by?"  I 
asked.  "I  hope  nothing  has  happened 
to  call  him  home  suddenly." 

"Don't  talk  to  me  about  Mr.  Bar- 
ber," cried  Natalie  petulantly.  "I 
never  want  to  hear  his  name  men- 
tioned, do  you  understand,  Con- 
stance?" 

"Now,  Natalie,"  I  exclaimed,  sink- 
ing down  on  the  low  couch,  "you  have 
quarrelled  with  Paul  Barber  and 
driven  him  away,  just  when  we  were 
all  having  such  a  jolly  good  time  to- 
gether. We  will  have  to  give  up  that 
fishing  trip  to-morrow,  I  suppose. 
You  wretched  girl,  why  did  you  do 
it?    Do  tell  me  all  about  it." 

"Oh,  I  am  so  angry,"  cried  Natalie, 


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only  too  eager  to  pour  out  her  woe. 
"What  do  you  suppose  he  did  ?  I  am 
so  disappointed  in  him — ^he  has 
spoiled  all  our  nice  times.  Constance, 
he — ^he — ^proposed  to  me!" 

"Good  gracious  I"  I  cried.  "Is  that 
all  r  I  felt  like  shaking  Natalie,  who 
was  the  picture  of  despair. 

"All!"  she  exclaimed,  her  brown 
eyes  flashing.  Her  cheeks  were 
flushed  and  she  walked  excitedly  up 
and  down  the  room,  her  soft  blue 
kimono  trailing  behind  her.  "Isn't 
that  enough?  Here  we  were  having 
such  good  times,  the  best  sort  of  com- 
rades, with  never  a  thought  of  any 
such  foolishness,  and  now  he  did 
that."  She  flung  herself  down  in  the 
low  chair  among  the  golden-brown 
cushions.  "I  am  so  disappointed  in 
him,"  she  sobbed.  "I  don't  know  why 
he  had  to  go  and  spoil  everything  by 
falling  in  love  with  me.  It  was  so 
foolish." 

"What  crazy,  vacillating  creatures 
girls  are,"  cried  Ralph,  when  I  slipped 
'away  to  his  den  to  confide  in  him. 
"Why  couldn't  she  marry  him?  I'm 
sure  she  has  encouraged  him  enough. 
I  should  like  to  shake  young  Natalie 
for  sending  him  away  just  in  the 
height  of  the  fishing  season."  And 
that  was  all  the  satisfaction  I  could 
get  out  of  him. 

June  came  and  the  garden  was  riot- 
ous with  roses.  The  air  was  heavy 
with  their  ravishing  perfume,  mingled 
with  that  of  the  honeysuckles.  The 
garden  paths  were  showered  with 
pink  and  white  petals  and  we  filled 
every  available  place  in  the  house  with 
great  jars  of  velvety  Jaqueminots, 
delicate  fragrant  tea  roses  and  glow- 
ing   hearted    pink    ones.      Over    the 


piazzas  and  arbors  climbed  crimson 
ramblers,  making  great  splashes  of 
color  in  the  brilliant  day.  I  should 
have  been  as  riotously  happy  as  the 
birds  and  the  butterflies  and  all  the 
real  children  of  Nature  except  for 
Natalie,  but  she  looked  so  pale  and 
unhappy  that  I  was  really  troubled 
about  her. 

"I  believe,"  I  confided  to  Ralph  one 
day,  "that  Natalie  is  really  in  love 
with  Paul  Barber,  only  she  didn't  find 
it  out  until  he  went  away,  and  then 
she  realized  how  she  had  grown  to 
depend  on  him." 

I  was  quite  undecided  what  I 
ought  to  do  about  it  all,  when  I  re- 
ceived a  visit  from  Mrs.  Sumner.  It 
was  a  warm  day  and  I  was  lazily 
swinging  in  the  hammock  on  the  front 
piazza  watching  two  orioles  'flit  from 
tree  to  tree,  like  bits  of  concentrated 
sunshine,  when  I  heard  the  click  of 
the  garden  gate  and  Mrs.  Sumner 
came  puffing  up  the  walk. 

"Good  afternoon,  Mis'  Dexter," 
she  cried,  settling  herself  in  a  low 
chair,  which  she  filled  and  over- 
flowed on  every  side.  "I  thought 
I'd  run  in  a  minute,  as  I  was 
passin'  by." 

I  knew  this  meant  a  two-hour  visit 
at  least,  but  I  beamed  cordially  upon 
her  as  I  gave  her  a  fan  and  sent  for 
some  lemonade. 

"I've  just  been  to  see  Miss  Barber," 
she  explained,  after  she  had  regained 
her  breath  and  turned  a  few  shades 
paler.  "Yes,  Miss  Barber  don't  seem 
well  to  me.  I  thought  you'd  like  to 
know,  bein'  a  neighbor.  She  looks 
real  peaked." 

"Does  she?"  I  exclaimed.  "I  have 
not  seen  her  for  several  days.     Per- 


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haps  these  first  warm  days  are  too 
much  for  her." 

"No,  I  don't  think  it's  the  weather," 
she  said,  shaking  her  head.  "No, 
Mis'  Dexter,  I  think  she's  worryin' 
about  her  nephew." 

I  gave  a  little  sigh.  Was  it  always 
to  be  Miss  Barber's  nephew? 

"Yes,  she's  worryin'  about  him 
again,  but  for  a  different  reason  this 
time.  Mis'  Dexter.  I  think  she  misses 
him  now  he  ain't  be'n  down  for  so 
long.  She  got  real  dependent  on  him 
when  he  was  comin'  down  every 
week  or  two  this  spring.  She  can't 
understand  why  he  won't  come  and  I 
don't  think  he's  treatin'  her  quite 
right." 

"Perhaps  he  is  busy,"  I  suggested. 
"It's  very  hard  for  men  who  are  in 
business  in  New  York  to  get  away, 
you  know,  Mrs.  Sumner." 

"Well,"  she  sniffed,  "he  came  all  he 
wanted  to  all  spring,  and  I,  for  my 
part,  don't  think  he's  actin'  right  by 
his  old  aunt.  Miss  Barber  ain't  for 
this  world  long,  I  don't  believe." 

I  turned  the  conversation  to  recipes 
for  nutcake  and  the  best  way  of 
"doing  up"  strawberries,  but  all  the 
while  I  was  thinking  of  poor  Miss 
Barber,  who  was  getting  "peaked" 
again. 

"Ralph,"  I  said  going  into  the  den 
after  dinner,  where  he  was  smoking, 
"we  must  make  these  two  children 
make  up.  Natalie  is  growing  paler 
and  thinner  every  day.  Miss  Barber  is 
'getting  peaked,'  and  Mildred  Snow 
writes  that  Mr.  Barber  seems  to  have 
caught  malaria  down  in  our  heathen- 
ish country,  and  he,  too,  is  half  ill. 
You  must  do  something,  dear.  Here 
is  Natalie  moping  out  on  the  pisLZza, 
in  the  moonlight,  and  there  is  Paul 


Barber  moping  so  openly  in  New 
York  that  they  think  it's  mala- 
ria instead  of  heart  trouble.  He 
does  not  seem  to  mind  the  daws 
at  all." 

"I  have  a  scheme,  little  woman," 
cried  Ralph,  throwing  away  his  cigar 
and  drawing  me  out  into  the  moonlit 
garden.  "Let  Natalie  mope  on  the 
piazza;  I  want  you  all,  all  to  miyself 
for  a:  little  while  and  I  will  confide  my 
plot  to  you." 

The  next  day  Ralph  went  unex- 
pectedly to  New  York  on  business. 
During  the  three  days  he  was  gone, 
Natalie,  if  she  had  not  been  so  ab- 
sorbed in  her  own  affairs,  would 
surely  have  noticed  my  excitement. 
But  she  went  about  listlessly,  with 
pale  face  and  pathetic  big  brown 
eyes  that  were  continually  looking 
beyond  me  and  Cranford  to  the  far- 
off  city  where  Paul  Barber  was  un- 
doubtedly moping  too. 

On  Thursday  I  received  a  telegram 
from  Ralph,  saying,  "Have  met  the 
enemy  and  he  is  ours.  Will  be  up  at 
7.15."  After  which  I  went  about  with 
such  a  beaming  face  that  I  suppose  I 
must  have  seemed  very  unsympathetic 
to  poor,  stubborn  Natalie,  who  would 
not  give  in  and  send  for  the  man  she 
longed  to  see  again. 

"We  will  have  a  late  supper  to- 
night," I  said  to  her,  as  we  had  after- 
noon tea  on  the  veranda.  "Ralph  is 
coming  on  the  7.15." 

She  languidly  assented,  though  her 
thoughts  were  far  away,  and  soon 
went  upstairs  to  dress. 

"O  Natalie,"  I  called  to  her,  "put 
on  that  white  gown  I  like  so  much, 
there's  a  dear." 

She  looked  puzzled  for  a  moment. 
She  wondered   why,   I  suppose,   but 


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MISS    BARBER'S    NEPHEW 


called  down,  "Oh,  very  well,  if  you 
like,  Constance." 

She  did  not  come  down  until  after 
seven,  and  I  was  in  a  fever  of  impa- 
tience as  I  waited  for  her  in  the  hall. 
"How  charming,"  I  cried,  as  she  came 
slowly  down  the  broad  low  steps,  her 
long  white  gown  trailing  behind  her. 
Notwithstanding  her  pallor  and  the 
dark  circles  under  her  brilliant  eyes, 
she  looked  prettier  than  ever. 

"Dear  Natalie,"  I  cried,  "would  you 
mind  very  much  going  out  to  the  gar- 
den and  cutting  some  roses  for  the 
table?  I  have  not  time,  for  Ralph 
will  be  here  in  a  minute  and  I  want 
everything  to  be  particularly  attrac- 
tive to-night." 

She  took  the  shears  and  went 
slowly  down  the  garden  walk.  The 
west  was  flaming  crimson  as  the  slen- 
der white  figure  wandered  nearer  the 
wild  end  of  the  garden,  so  that  when 
the  carriage  drove  up  she  was  too  far 
away  to  hear  the  sound  of  the  wheels 
on  the  gravel.  Ralph  sprang  out  al- 
most before  the  carriage  stopped  and 
in  another  moment  Paul  Barber  was 
beside  me,  shaking  both  my  hands. 
"Where  is  she?"  he  begged,  his  eyes 
in  search  of  Natalie. 

"She  is  in  the  garden,"  I  said. 
"She  does  not  know  you  are  coming." 
But  before  I  had  finished  speaking 
he  was  gone  through  the  wide  hall, 
whose  doors  stood  open  at  each  end, 
and  I  saw  him  disappearing  down  the 
garden  path. 

Ralph  and  I  had  plenty  to  say  to 
each  other,  so  it  was  several  minutes 
before  we  strolled  out  to  the  veranda. 
At  the  far  end  of  the  garden  saun- 
tered two  figures  among  the  roses, 
and  I  could  distinctly  see  Paul  Bar- 


ber's arm  around  Natalie's  white 
waist. 

"It's  all  right,"  I  whispered  with 
the  tears  in  my  eyes,  and  then  I  stole 
away  to  find  Miss  Barber  and  bring 
her  home  with  me  to  a  late  supper. 

The  sunset  faded  and  the  full  moon 
rose  and  we  were  still  sitting  on  the 
piazza  overlooking  the  garden.  Miss 
Barber,  Ralph  and  I.  The  mild  even- 
ing air  was  fragrant  with  the  per- 
fumes that  floated  up  from  the  roses. 
In  silence  we  watched  the  moon  ris- 
ing higher,  casting  the  black  shadows 
of  the  tall  pines  and  elms  to  our  feet. 
In  the  brilliant  moonlight  the  garden 
was  turned  to  silver  and  the  flowers 
lifted  pale  faces  to  the  sky.  At  the 
far  end  of  the  garden  Natalie's  gown 
gleamed  white,  as  she  and  Paul  Bar- 
ber still  strolled  about  in  the  shadow 
of  the  trees. 

At  last  they  came  sauntering  down 
the  broad  path  between  the  roses. 
The  soft  moonlight  touched  Natalie's 
fair  hair,  turning  it  into  a  pale  aureole 
about  her  face,  as  she  lifted  it  to  Bar- 
ber's. A  ripple  of  laughter  and  low 
happy  voices  came  to  us,  and  Paul, 
nothing  daunted  by  us,  slipped  his 
arm  about  the  girl.  Ralph  reached 
over  and  laid  his  hand  on  mine  as  it 
lay  on  the  chair  arm  and  I  smiled 
back  at  him  happily.  Not  so  long 
ago  we  had  been  just  so  foolish,  just 
as  radiantly  blissful  as  these  two  lov- 
ers walking  in  the  moonlit  garden. 
Still  with  his  arm  around  her,  Paul  led 
Natalie  up  to  the  little  g^oup  on  the 
piazza. 

"Aunt  Matilda,"  he  said,  clasping 
her  hand  and  drawing  Natalie 
towards  her.  "Aunt  Matilda,  how 
would  you  like  Natalie  for  a  niece?" 


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And  Miss  Barber  rose,  a  quaint 
old-time  figure  in  her  crinoline  and 
her  bobbing  curls,  but  radiant,  reju- 
venated by  the  little  love  story  going 
on  under  her  eyes.  She  placed  one 
trembling  hand  on  Paul's  arm  and 
held  out  the  other  to  Natalie. 


"My  dear,"  she  said,  when  she 
could  speak  for  the  happy  tears,  '*my 
dear,  I  am  so  glad.  You  will  find 
him  the  dearest  nephew  in  the 
world." 

And  then  we  all  laughed  and  went 
gayly  into  supper. 


The  Great  Anniversary  Day 

By  Edward  Everett  Hale,  D.  D. 


THERE  are  three  possible 
celebrations  of  Christmas, 
not  to  say  four. 

It  is  rather  a  nice  thing 
as  December  comes  round  to  in- 
quire what  particular  mixture  of 
the  four  ingredients  are  to  come 
into  the  mixture  of  that  particular 
y€far. 

1.  Nobody  knows  how  far  back, 
centuries  before  the  night  on  which 
Milton  wrote,  the  world  of  the 
northern  regions  had  its  services, 
sometimes  festal,  always  religious, 
in  celebrating  the  shortcfst  day  of 
the  year.  The  whole  business  of 
shortening  of  the  days  and  then  of 
their  gradual  lengthening  is  so 
pathetic  and  so  suggestive  that  that 
Would  be  a  barbarous  tribe  which 
did  not  observe  the  moment  of  the 
shortest  day  in  their  religious  cele- 
brations. 

2.  With  the  Council  of  Nice,  in 
the  year  325,  the  Council  which  put 
in  order  the  traditions  and  exter- 
nal arrangements  of  the  Church 
which  had  then  existefd  longer  than 
the  white  settlement  of  the  United 
States  has  existed  now,  the  twenty- 
fifth    of    December,  or  a  day  cor- 


responding to  it,  was  selefcted  as  a 
great  anniversary  day  for  Christen- 
dom. It  does  not  do  to  say  infant 
Christendom.  That  is  not  an  infant 
which  fixes  the  date  of  three  hun- 
dred and  twenty  years  for  its  age. 
The  critics  are  by  no  means  certain 
that  the  Saviour  was  born  in  the 
depths  of  winter,  but  he  was  born 
when  the  world's  day  was  at  its 
shortest  and  when  light  was  to 
shine  upon  all  nations.  "The  peo- 
ple who  sat  in  darkness  saw  a  great 
Light."  Thirteefn  hundred  and 
sixty-two  years  after  the  Council  of 
Nice,  it  happened,  if  anything  hap- 
pens, that  the  fifty  men  and  fifty 
women  who  are  to  be  the  moral 
founders  of  the  new  nation  landed 
at  a  place  called  "Patuxet"  (little 
Fall),  which  we  now  call  Plym- 
outh." They  had  broken  away 
from  the  fatherland  and  from  its 
traditions.  Many  of  these  tradi- 
tions they  did  not  love;  they  liked 
to  testify  their  dislike  of  them.  But 
now  it  happened,  if,  as  I  say,  any- 
thing ever  happens,  that  they  were 
to  begin  their  new  home  in  Amer- 
ica, at  the  moment  when  the  days 
were   the   shortest   and   the   nights 


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THE   GREAT   ANNIVERSARY   DAY 


were  the  longest.  But  if  they  were 
people  who  sat  in  darkness,  they 
were  to  see  a  great  light.  They  had 
everything  to  press  them  to  haste. 
You  would  have  said  that  they 
would  have  begun  on  the  work  of 
founding  an  empire  with  the  first 
ray  of  morning  light,  but  with  what 
seems  grim  determination,  they 
waited  till  the  morning  of  Christ- 
mas Day,  the  twenty-fifth  of  De- 
cember, before  they  all  landed.  The 
stern  statement  of  the  diary  is: 
"Munday  the  25.  day  we  went  on 
shore,  some  to  fell  tymber,  some  to 
saw,  some  to  riue,  and  some  to 
carry,  so  no  man  rested  all  that 
day,  but  towards  night  some  as  they 
were  at  worke,  heard  a  noyse  of 
some  Indians,  which  caused  vs  all 
to  goe  to  our  Muskets,  but  we  heard 
no  further,  so  we  came  aboord 
againe,  and  left  some  twentie  to 
keep  the  court  of  gard;  that  night 
we  had  a  sore  storme  of  winde  and 
rayne."  And  again  "Munday,  the 
25,  being  Christmas  Day  we  began 
to  drinke  water  aboord,  but  at  night 
the  Master  caused  vs  to  have  some 
Beere,  and  so  on  board  as  had 
diverse  times  now  and  then 
some  Beere,  but  on  shore  none 
at  all." 

"And  no  man  rested  on  that 
day."  So  it  is  that  it  "happened" 
that  the  real  birthday  of  demo- 
cratic government  through  the  world, 
of  constitutional  government  wher- 
ever the  Constitution  has  been 
rooted,  and,  if  anybody  cares,  of 
the  little  nation  known  as  the 
United  States  of  America,  that  this 
birthday  is  the  same  day  which  the 
Council  of  Nice  fixed  for  the  great 
annual  celebration  of  the  Church  of 


Christ.     "The   people   who   sat    in 
darkness  were  to  see  a  great  Light" 

Considerations  as  various  as  the 
astronomical  fact,  as  the  circum- 
stances from  which  the  Church  of 
Christ  began  and  the  recollections 
of  the  beginning  of  the  moral  foot- 
hold of  Christendom  upon  North 
America  appear  in  every  celebra- 
tion of  Christmas  in  the  United 
States.  And  now  in  the  years 
which  have  passed  since  a  handful  of 
Dutch  traders  planted  South  Africa, 
since  another  handful  of  English 
convicts  were  carried  against  their 
will  to  Botany  Bay,  there  are 
Christmas  celebrations  in  the  south- 
ern half  of  the  world  at  the  moment 
when  the  days  are  at  their  longest, 
when  the  summer  is  beginning  to 
take  on  the  colors  of  autumn.  In 
such  lands  children  do  not  associate 
Christmas  with  skating  or  with 
snow,  but  with  all  the  most  brilliant 
colors  of  Nature. 

The  celebrations  of  Christmas  in 
southern  Europe  followed  very 
closely  on  the  feasts  of  Saturnalia 
wherever  the  Roman  Empire  ex- 
tended. These  were  the  feasts,  the 
name  of  which  is  still  preserved 
when  we  give  the  word  Saturnalia 
to  any  occasion  of  rabble,  or  rout, 
or  fun.  Gradually,  from  the  time  of 
the  early  Republic  down,  the  festi- 
val took  to  itself  more  time  and 
more,  till,  in  the  second  century 
after  Christ,  we  find  that  the  Satur- 
nalia extended  often  over  seven 
days.  In  Augustus's  time,  three 
days  were  appointed  by  an  edict 
from  him  for  the  reckless  amuse- 
ment of  the  time.  This  was  ex- 
tended to  five  days  by  an  edict  of 
Caligula  and    Claudius,  the    Clau- 


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dius  mentioned  in  the  Book  of 
Acts. 

The  amusefments,  which  ran  over 
several  days,  might  be  found  in 
some  of  the  older  European  towns 
to  this  hour.  The  Saturnalia  of 
Rome  did  not  differ  from  the  Dio- 
nysia  of  Athens,  which  took  their 
name  from  drunkenness,  as  being  a 
sort  of  revel  in  honor  of  Dionysus. 
You  would  sec  strangers  and  towns- 
people walking  up  and  down  the 
streets  with  gjarlands  on  their 
heads.  You  would  see  fresh  gar- 
lands put  on  altars  and  on  the  re- 
ligious images  at  the  corners.  Prod- 
igal people,  who  wanted  the  excitef- 
ment  to  be  at  the  full,  filled  huge 
bowls  with  wine,  so  that  anybody 
might  drink.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
guess  what  followed.  The  night 
before  the  Fourth  of  July  in  an 
American  city  does  not  give?  any 
such  riot  as  these  drunken  revellers 
managed  to  throw  into  every  night 
of  such  festivities. 

The  theatre  was  crowded  by  peo- 
ple who  had  not  money  enough  to 
pay  for  their  tickets.  First  come, 
first  served,  was  the  rule,  and  from 
early  dawn  the  seats  were  crowded 
with  spectators.  And  what  we  call 
the  "Side  Show"  was  just  as  well 
known  there  as  it  is  here.  Dancing 
girls,  boys  and  girls  who  threw 
somersaults,  fighting  mefn,  jugglers, 
monkeys  dressed  in  funny  suits 
with  their  faces  masked,  who  per- 
formed dances  as  if  they  were  well- 
bred  gentlemen  and  ladies,  such 
were  the  diflferent  amusements  of 
which  the  books  tell  us.  I  almost 
wish  that  some  modern  performer 
would  sit  down  on  a  potter's  wheel 
in  rapid  motion  and  read  and  write, 


and  we  see  him  as  he  did  so.  In 
Athens,  and  I  rather  think  in  Rome, 
you  could  seef  a  man  do  this,  and 
every  now  and  then  open  his  mouth 
wide  and  let  fly  a  stream  of  sparks 
among  the  spectators.  That  I 
have  never  seen  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  I  have  seefn  people  who 
could  swallow  swords  and  daggers, 
but  the  jugglers  knew  how  to  do 
that  as  well  in  Rome  as  they  do 
here.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  all 
such  assemblies  attracted  pick- 
pockets and  other  thieves  just  as 
they  do  now.  And  a  country  lad 
who  came  into  a  large  town  to  cele- 
brate his  Christmas,  which  was 
called  his  Saturnalia,  went  back 
much  poorer  than  he  came. 

Farther  North,  where  the  winter 
and  summer  are  more  strongly  con- 
trasted, the  festivals  of  the  heart  of 
winter  were  festivals  of  good  fel- 
lowship, of  home  feasts  and  indoor 
life,  long  before  the  people  of  the 
north  had  received  Christian  mis- 
sions. The  boar's  head  which  plays  so 
important  a  part  in  the  Christmas  fes- 
tivities of  England,  carries  us  back  to 
the  legends  of  the  feasting  in  the  Hall 
of  Odion,  feasting  which  was  never 
finished. 

"The  heroes,"  says  the  Edda,  "re- 
turn as  soon  as  the  hour  of  repose 
approaches,  safe  and  sound,  to  the 
Hall  of  Odion.  They  fall  to  eating 
and  drinking.  Though  the  number 
of  them  can  not  be  counted,  the 
flesh  of  the  Boar  Saehrimnir  is  suffi- 
cient for  them  all.  Every  day  it  is 
served  up  at  table,  and  every  day 
it  is  renewed  again  entire.  "Their 
beverage  is  ale  and  mead.  One  sin- 
gle goat  furnishes  mead  enough  to 
intoxicate  all  the  heroes.    It  is  only 


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THE   GREAT   ANNIVERSARY   DAY 


Odin  who  drinks  winef  for  his  only 
liquor.  A  crowd  of  virgins  Wait 
upon  the  heroes  at  table  and  fill 
their  cups  as  fast  as  they  empty 
them." 

The  great  religious  festival  was 
celebrated  at  the  winter's  solstice 
which  now  comes  on  the  twenty- 
first  of  December.  They  called  the 
night  of  its  observance  "Mother 
Night."  And  this  name  marks  the 
habit  of  their  calendar  in  which  it 
differed  as  ours  differs  from  the  cal- 
endar of  southern  nations,  which 
began  the  year  with  March,  or  the 
Slav  nations,  which  began  the  year 
in  the  autumn.  Thef  northern  na- 
tions computed  from  the  one  winter 
solstice  to  the  next.  Sacrificing, 
feasting  assemblies  at  night,  and 
other  reckless  demonstrations  of 
joy  were  authorized  as  in  the  Satur- 
nalia of  the  Romans. 

I  made  a  good  defal  of  search 
when  I  had  time  for  such  things 
in  the  chronicles  of  the  year  1620,  to 
find  how  the  rest  of  the  world  was 
celebrating  Christmas.  But  I  could 
find  only  two  celebrations.  Here 
is  the  account  which  Howell,  whom 
the  newspaper  mcfn  account  as  one 
of  their  early  saints,  gave  of  the 
French  ambassador  who  landed  in 
England   on   that   Christmas  Day. 

"There  is  a  flouting  French  am- 
bassador here.  He  had  an  audience 
two  days  sincef,  where  he  carried 
himself  in  such  light  garb  with  his 
train  of  revelling,  long-haired  mon- 
sieurs,  that  after  the  audience,  the 
king  asked  my  Lord  Keeper  Bacon 
what  he  thought  of  the  French  am- 
bassador. He  answered  that  he  was 
a  "tall  proper  man."  "Aye,"  His 
Majesty    replied,  "but  what    think 


you  of  his  headpiece?  Is  he  a 
proper  man  for  the  office  of  an  am- 
bassador?" "Sir,"  said  Bacon, 
"tall  men  are  like  houses,  the  four 
or  five  stories  wherein,  commonly, 
the  uppermost  room  is  worst  fur- 
nished." 

This  French  ambassador  was  en- 
tertained through  the  Christmas 
holidays  by  King  James  the  Fool, 
with  every  elegance  which  should 
show  that  Englishmen  were  not 
barbarians.  On  what  W3e  call 
Twelfth  Night,  the  king  had  a 
masque  at  Whitehall  in  his  honor, 
where  none  were  allowed  beneath 
the  rank  of  baron.  John  Chamber- 
lain writes  of  this  masque:  "A  Puri- 
tan was  flouted  and  abused,  which 
was  thought  unseemly,  considering 
the  state  of  the  French  Protest- 
ants." 

The   ambassador  came    over    to 
propose  a  match  with  France,  the 
first    proposal   of    the    fateful   union 
between  Charles  the  First  and  Hen- 
rietta,   who   became    the    mother   of 
Charles  the  Second  and  James  the 
Second.    It  is  prophetic  indeed  that 
while  a  fool  at  the  head  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation  was  "flouting  the  Puri- 
tans" in  his  masque  at  the  Palace 
of  Whitehall,  a  few  hundred  Puri- 
tans above    Plymouth    Rock  were 
building    a   twenty-foot   storehouse 
which  has  proved  the  beginning  of 
an  empire.     Here  is  the  account  of 
that   Christmas   Day   of  which  we 
have  given  Bradford's  record.    The 
exact    dates   are   these:   A   party   of 
them  landed  to  take  a  better  view 
of  two  places  on   the  Wednesday 
before   Christmas.     They  even  left 
twenty  people  on  shore,  resolved  to 
begin  their  house  next  day.    But  it 


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THE   GREAT   ANNIVERSARY   DAY 


625 


stormed  the  next  day,  and  these 
people  went  back  to  the  ship.  Rich 
ard  Britteridge  dicfd  on  Thursday. 
Friday  it  stormed  like  fury,  and 
they  could  not  land.  Some  of  the 
people  who  had  gone  on  shore  had 
to  spend  the  night  in  the  rain. 
Saturday  some  more  got  on  shore 
and  got  some  timber.  Sunday  was 
Sunday,  and,  of  course,  nobody 
worked  that  day.  But  at  last 
Christmas  Day  came,  that  was 
Monday.  There  was  not  a  man, 
a  woman,  a  boy  or  a  girl  'but  who 
had  always  felt  that  the  twenty- 
fifth  day  of  December  was  the  great 
holiday  of  holidays,  was  a  day  for 
fun  and  a  day  on  which  nobody 
could  be  told  by  anybody  to  do.  any- 
thing. But,  alas,  and  alas!  this  had 
been  a  habit,  and  these  people 
mcfant  to  defy  the  habit.  So,  when 
Monday  morning  came,  every  man 
who  could  handle  an  axe  or  a  pick, 
went  on  shore,  and  for  that  Christ- 
mas Day,  the  day  the  French  am- 
bassador was  landed  at  Dover,  John 
Carver,  William  Bradford  and  Wil- 
liam Brewster  were  blistering  their 
hands  as  they  laid  the  logs  which 
were  to  make  the  house  which  was 
to  be  the  foundation  of  the  new 
world.  It  is  here  that  Bradford 
writes  so  coolly  the  wbrds  which 
you  have  read,  "So  no  man  rested 
on  that  day." 

I  have  intimated  that  a  fourth 
celebration  was  possible,  nay,  that 
a  fourth  celebration  has  gone  on  for 
a  century  past  in  countries  where 


this  paper  will  be  read  with  a  cer- 
tain amusement  on  Christmas  Day. 
In  South  Africa,  in  the  Argentine, 
in  Australia  and  New  Zealand, 
Christmas  is  no  longer  a  day  of  the 
people  who  sat  in  darkness  and  saw 
a  great  light.  It  is  a  day  when  the 
Sun  of  Righteousness  is  in  the 
ascendant. 

So,  Father,  grant  that  year  by  year 
The  Sun  of  Righteousness  more  clear 
To  our  awaiting  heart  appear, 
And  from  his  doubtful  East  arise 
The  noonday  Monarch  of  the  Skies — 
Till  darkness  from  the  nations  flies; 
Till  all  know  him  as  they  are  known, 
Till  all  the  earth  be  all  his  own. 

Before  another  Christmas  Day 
comes  round,  some  of  our  trans- 
equatorial  correspondents  must 
send  us  cheerful  odes  of  satisfaction 
which  belong  to  the  Christmas  of 
the  southern  half  of  the  world. 
Shall  one  say,  the  Christmas  of 
**never-withering  flowers." 

The  Scriptures  will  be  such  mem- 
ories of  cheer  as,  "The  earth 
brought  forth  the  trefe,  yielding 
fruit  after  its  kind,  and  God  saw 
that  it  was  good."  And  the 
Psalms  shall  be  "Who  maketh 
peace  in  thy  borders  and  filleth  thee 
with  the  finest  of  the  wheat."  "He 
causeth  his  wind  to  blow  and  the 
waters  to  flow."  "Praise  the  Lord 
from  the  earth,  fruitful  trees  and  all 
cedars,  that  our  sons  may  be  as 
plants  grown  up  in  their  youth." 

The  great  Light  in  the  darkness 
as  life  renews  itself  forever.  This 
shall  furnish  the  tefxts  of  the  south- 
ern hemisphere. 


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More  Quaint  Readers  in  the  Old- 
Time  School 


By  aifton  Johnson 


FOR  several  decades  in  the  early 
days  of  the  republic,  the  cate- 
chism, the  Psalter  and  the 
Bible  continued  to  be  exten- 
sively used  in  the  schools  and  served 
for  drilling  pupils  in  the  art  of  reading. 

But  the  child  could  not  acquire  a 
taste  for  reading  from  such  sources, 
nor  obtain  from  them  information 
concerning  history,  or  the  world 
about  him,  or  the  world  at  large. 
There  was  a  demand  for  more  free- 
dom in  the  use  of  secular  material  in 
the  school  curriculum.  The  national 
life  was  developing  rapidly,  inter- 
ests were  broadening,  and  a  steady 
theological  diet  was  no  longer  satis- 
fying.  Besides,  the  general  unity  oi 
religious  doctrine  which  character- 
ized the  people  earlier  had  given 
place  to  diversity,  and  Calvinism  had 
strenuous  opponents. 

A  natural  result  was  a  marked  in- 
crease in  the  number  and  variety  of 
the  school  books,  and  in  these  the 
nature  of  the  child,  his  inclinations, 
tastes  and  desires  became  more  and 
more  dominant  factors  in  the  choice 
and  arrangement  of  subject-matter. 
Instead  of  demanding  that  the  child 
should  adjust  himself  entirely  to  the 
coiu-se  of  study,  efforts  were  made  to 
adjust  the  course  of  study  to  the  re- 
quirements of  the  child. 

The  first  reader  produced  on  this 
side  of  the  Atlantic  was  compiled  by 
the  industrious  Mr.  Webster,  shortly 
626 


after  the  Revolution,  as  the  Third 
Part  of  his  Grammatical  InstihUe. 
Hitherto,  the  only  text-books  con- 
taining exercises  in  reading  were  the 
spellers  atid  New  England  Primers- 
Webster's  title-page  describes  his 
book  as  "An  American  Selection  of 
Lessons  in  Reading  and  Speaking 
calculated  to  improve  the  minds  and 
refine  the  taste  of  youth,  to  which 
are  prefixed  Rules  in  Elocution  and 
directions  for  expressing  the  Princi- 
pal Passions  of  the  Mind."  Frcmi  the 
prefatory  matter  I  have  taken  the 
several  paragraphs  which  follow: 

Let  each  syllable  be  pronounced  with  a 
clear  voice,  without  whining,  drawling, 
lisping,  stammering,  mumbling  in  the 
throat,  or  speaking  through  the  nose. 

If  a  person  is  rehearsing  the  words  of 
an  angry  man,  he  should  assume  the  same 
furious  looks;  his  eyes  should  flash  with 
rage,  his  gestures  should  be  violent,  and 
the  tone  of  his  voice  threatening.  If 
kindness  is  to  be  expressed,  the  counte- 
nance should  be  calm  and  placid,  and  wear 
a  smile,  the  tone  should  be  mild,  and  the 
motion  of  the  hand  inviting. 

Mirth  or  laughter  opens  the  mouth, 
crisps  the  nose,  lessens  the  aperture  of 
the  eyes,  and  shakes  the  whole  frame. 

Grief  is  expressed  by  weeping,  stamping 
with  the  feet,  lifting  up  the  eyes  to  heaven, 
etc. 

Fear  opens  the  eyes  and  mouth,  shortens 
the  nose,  draws  down  the  eye-brows, 
gives  the  countenance  an  air  of  wildness; 
the  face  becomes  pale,  the  elbows  are 
drawn  back  parallel  with  the  sides,  one 
foot  is  drawn  back,  the  heart  beats  vio- 
lently, the  breath  is  quick,  the  voice  weak 
and  trembling. 


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PART  OF  tHE  EPISCOPAL  BURIAL  SERVlCS. 
FROM  THE  BOOK  07  COMMON  FBATER. 


Rather  slow. 

YY    Y 


I  am  the  I  resur- 


y.y. 


Y*Y-  I  •• 
rection  | 


Y.  Y 
and  the 


? 
life. 


9    Y  I    ?•   I- 

saith  the  |  Lord ; 


i-l  Y*   I     Y 
he  that  be- 


I   Y  Y  Yl  ?  ' 
I  liereth  in  |  me,' 


Y      Y     Y    I    9,    " 
though  he  were  |  dead, 


Y   I    9 
yet  shall  he  j 


Y-     I 


live; 


Portion  of  a  page  from  Comstock*s  TAe  Rythmical  Reader 


Boasting  is  loud  and  blustering.  The 
eyes  stare,  the  face  is  red  and  bloated,  the 
mouth  pouts,  the  voice  is  hollow,  the  arms 
akimbo,  the  head  nods  in  a  threatening 
manner,  the  right  fist  sometimes  clenched 
and  brandished. 

The  bulk  of  the  book  is  made  up 
of  three  departments:  Narration — 
Lessons  in  Speaking — Dialogues.  In 
one  lesson  with  the  caption,  "Rules 
of  Behavior/'  we  find  this  advice: 

Never  hold  any  body  by  the  button  or 
the  hand,  in  order  to  be  heard  through 
your  story;  for  if  the  people  are  not  will- 
ing to  hear  you,  you  had  much  better  hold 
your  tongue  than  hold  them. 

Here  are  the  opening  paragraphs 
of  a  tale  entitled: 

MODESTY,  DOUBT,  AND  TENDER 
AFFECriON 

Calista  was  young  and  beautiful,  en- 
dowed with  a  great  share  of  wit  and  solid 
sense.  Agathocles,  whose  years  very  Httle 
exceeded  hers,  was  well  made,  brave  and 
prudent.  He  had  the  good  fortune  to  be 
introduced  to  Calista's  home,  where  his 
looks,  wandering  indifferently  over  a  nu- 
merous circle,  soon  distinguished  and 
fixed  upon  her. 

But  recovering  from  the  short  ecstasy 
occasioned  by  the  first  sight,  he  re- 
proached himself,  as  being  guilty  of  rude- 
ness to  the  rest  of  the  company;  a  fault 
which  he  endeavored  to  correct  by  looking 


round  on  other  objects.  Vain  attempt! 
They  were  attracted  by  a  powerful  charm, 
and  turned  again  towards  Calista.  He 
blushed  as  well  as  she,  while  a  sweet  emo- 
tion produced  a  kind  of  fluttering  in  his 
heart,  and  confusion  in  his  countenance. 

Of  course,  after  that,  Agathocles 
became  a  frequent  caller,  and  in 
every  visit  "he  discovered  some  new 
perfection  in  the  fair  Calista." 

At  last  he  resolved  to  open  his  heart  to 
her;  but  he  did  not  do  it  in  the  affected 
language  of  a  romantic  passion.  "Lovely 
Calista,"  said  he  ingenuously,  *'it  is  not 
mere  esteem  that  binds  me  to  you  but  a 
most  passionate  and  tender  love.  I  feel 
that  I  cannot  live  without  you.  Can  you, 
without  violence  to  your  inclinations,  con- 
sent to  make  me  happy?  I  may  love  you 
without  offence;  'tis  a  tribute  due  to  your 
merit.  But  may  I  flatter  myself  with  the 
hopes  of  some  small  return?" 

A  coquette  would  have  affected  to  be 
displeased  at  such  a  declaration.  But  Ca- 
lista not  only  listened  to  her  lover  without 
interrupting  him,  but  answered  him  with- 
out ill-nature,  and  gave  him  leave  to  hope. 
Nor  did  she  put  his  constancy  to  a  tedious 
trial:  the  happiness  for  which  he  sighed 
was  no  longer  delayed  than  was  necessary 
to  prepare  for  the  ceremony. 

About  1790  Webster  published  an- 
other reader,  a  square,  thick  little 
book  called  The  Little  Reader's  As- 
sistant.   It  contained  "familiar  stories 


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THE 
LITTLE  READER'S 


by  one  of  hi;  enemies  and 
betook  himself  to  this  ref- 
uge; 


ASSISTANT; 


I.  A  number  of  Stories, 
moftly  taken  from  the  hill- 
ory  cf  Am  erica  »an(i  adorned 
with  Cuts. 

II.  Rudimenisof  Englidi 
Grammar, 

Jll.  A  Federal  Catechifm, 
being  a  fhort  and  eafy  ex- 


CONTAINING 


"but  seeing  his  pursuer  on  the 
other  side,  waiting  to  shoot  him 
as  he  lifted  his  head  above  the 
rock  he  put  his  hat  upon  his 
gun,  and  raised  it  slowly  above 
the  rock.    The  Indian  seeing  it, 

IV,  General    principlc$    ^red  a  ball  through  it;  and  be- 
of  Gorcrnraentand  Com-   f^^e    he    could    load    his     gun 

""V/^^^u      c-  »    r»  .      again,    the     Christian      Indian 

V.  The   Farmers  Care.  ^  ^  ^^^  ^^^^,, 

cnizm,    containing    jrt&in   ^  ^   "  ^ 

rules  of  hufbandry. 


planation  of  the  Conllicu- 
tion  of  the  United  States. 


i^//  adapted  fa  tht:  capacities  of  children. 
Portion  of  the  title-page  of  the  earliest  middle-class  reading  book 

in  plain  language  for  the  benefit  of 
children,  when  they  first  begin  to 
read  without  spelling."  In  other 
words  it  was  a  middle-class  reader. 
A  good  many  years  were  still  to  pass 
before  any  one  devised  a  primary 
reader.  The  first  part  of  Webster's 
book  is  largely  a  relation  of  the 
early  settlers'  experiences  with  the 
Indians.  No  details  are  too  grue- 
some to  be  omitted  and  the  effect  on 
the  imaginations  of  "Little  Readers" 
could  not  have  been  altogether  salu- 
tary. About  a  dozen  pictures  illu- 
mine the  text.  The  first  illustrates 
the  "Story  of  Columbus,"  and  I  sup- 
pose that  is  Columbus  himself  wav- 
ing his  hat  from  the  masthead.  The 
sea  has  a  very  lively  appearance  and 
there  is  some  doubt  whether  the 
artist  has  delineated  an  expanse  of 
white-capped  waves  or  a  multitude  of 
leaping  fish. 

The  text  accompanying  the  pic- 
ture of  the  two  Indians  says  the  indi- 
vidual behind  the  rock  was  friendly 
with  the  English.     He  was  pursued 


The  final  picture  is  of 
a  queer-looking  beast  that 
one  would  hardly  recog^nize 
if  it  were  not  labelled.  The 
text  says: 

The  Buffalo,  found  in  the  woods  of 
America,  is  a  large  animal  with  black. 
short  horns.  He  has  a  large  beard  under 
his  lower  jaw,  and  a  large  tuft  of  hair 
upon  his  head,  which  falls  down  upon  his 
eyes  and  gives  him  a  hideous  look.  He 
has  a  large  hump  rising  on  his  back. 
beginning  at  his  hips  and  increasing  to  his 
shoulders.  This  is  covered  with  hair. 
somewhat  reddish,  and  very  long.  The 
rest  of  the  body  is  covered  with  black 
wool;  a  skin  produces  about  eight  pounds 
of  wool,  which  is  very  valuable. 

The  Buffalo  has  a  good  smell,  and  will 
perceive  a  man  at  a  great  distance,  unless 
the  wind  is  in  the  man's  favor.  His  flesh 
is  good,  but  the  bull's  is  too  tuff,  so  that 
none  but  the  cow's  is  generally  eaten.  His 
skin  makes  good  leather— and  the  Indians 
use  it  for  shields. 

The  last  half  of  the  book  is  devoted 
to  a  "Farmer's  Catechism,"  mostly 
agricultural  instructions,  but  starting 
off  with  some  general  laudation  like: 

Q.  Why  is  farming  the  best  business  a 
man  can  do? 

A.  Because  it  is  the  most  necessary, 
the  most  healthy,  the  most  innocent,  and 
most  agreeable  employment  of  men. 

Q.  Why  is  farming  the  most  innocent 
employment? 


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IN    THE   OLD-TIME   SCHOOL 


629 


Story  or  COLUMBUS. 

From  Webster's  The  Little  Reader* s  Assistant 

A.  Because  farmers  have  fewer  tempta- 
tions to  be  wicked  than  other  men.  They 
live  much  by  themselves,  so  that  they  do 
not  see  so  many  bad  examples  as  men  in 
cities  do.  They  have  but  little  dealing 
with  others,  so  that  they  have  fewer  op- 
portunities to  cheat  than  other  classes  of 
men.  Besides,  the  flocks  and  herds  which 
surround  the  farmer,  the  frolicks  of  the 
harmless  lambs,  the  songs  of  the  cheerful 
birds,  and  the  face  of  nature's  works,  all 
present  to  the  husbandmen  examples  of 
innocence,  beauty,  simplicity  and  order, 
which  ought  to  impress  good  sentiments 
on  the  mind  and  lead  the  heart  to  God. 

One  of  the  most  popular  of  the  early 
readers  was  Caleb  Bingham's  The 
American  Preceptor,  Boston,  1794. 
The  preface  declares  that 

In  making  selections  for  the 
following  work,  a  preference  has 
been  given  to  the  productions  of 
American  genius.  The  compiler 
has  not  been  wholly  confined  to 
America;  but  has  extracted  from 
approved  writers  of  different  ages 
and  countries.  Convinced  of  the 
impropriety  of  instilling  false 
notions  into  the  minds  of  chil- 
dren, he  has  not  given  place  to 
romantic  fiction.  The  compiler 
pledges  himself  that  this  book 
contains  neither  a  word  nor  a 
sentiment  which  would  "raise  a 
blush  on  the  cheek  of  modesty."  THE  "Christian"  Indian  GETS  the  Best  OF  THE  Heathen  Indian 


Most  of  the  early  reading 
books  drew  their  materials 
from  British  sources, 
and  American  contributions 
were  for  a  long  time  mainly 
from  the  speeches  of  the  Rev- 
olutionary orators.  Typical 
subjects  were — Frailty  of 
Life — Benevolence  of  the 
Deity — Popery — Rules  for 
Moderating  our  Anger — 
Reflections  on  Sun  Set — 
Character  of  a  Truly  Polite 
Man— The  Child  Trained 
up  for  the  Gallows.  These  and  the  rest 
of  their  kind  were  all  taken  "from  the 
works  of  the  most  correct  and  elegant 
writers."  The  books  were  also  pretty 
sure  to  contain  selections  from  the 
Bible,  and  some  had  parts  of  sermons. 
Indeed,  nearly  all  the  matter  was  of  a 
serious  moral  or  religious  character. 

About  a  dozen  years  after  The 
American  Preceptor  appeared  Bing- 
ham published  a  volume  of  dialogues 
and  pieces  suitable  for  declamation 
entitled  The  Columbian  Orator,  Per- 
haps nothing  in  the  book  more  gen- 
erally pleased  or  was  oftener  heard 
from  the  school  platform  than — 


From  Webster'*  The  Little  Reader^s  Assistant 


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Lines  Spoken  at  a  School- Ex- 
hibition,   BY  A  Little  Boy 
Seven  Years  Old 

You'd  scarce  expect  one  of  my  age, 

To  speak  in  public,  on  the  stage; 

And  if  I  chance  to  fall  below 

Demosthenes  or  Cicero, 

Don't  view  me  with  a  critic's  eye, 

But  pass  my  imperfections  by. 

Large  streamy  from  little  foun- 
tains flow; 

Tall  oaks  from  little  acorns  grow : 

And  though  I  now  am  small  and 
young, 

Of  judgment  weak,  and  feeble 
tongue; 

Yet  all  great  learned  men.  like  me, 

Once  learn'd  to  read  their  A,  B,  C. 

But  why  may  not  Columbia's  soil 

Rear  men  as  great  as  Britain's  isle; 

Exceed  what  Greece  and  Rome  have  done. 

Or  any  land  beneath  the  sun? 

Mayn't  Massachusetts  boast  as  great 

As  any  other  sister  state? 

Or,  Where's  the  town,  go  far  and  near. 

That  docs  not  find  a  rival  here? 

Or  Where's  the  boy,  but  three  feet  high. 

Who's  made  improvements  more  than  I? 

These  thoughts  inspire  my  youthful  mind 

To  be  the  greatest  of  mankind; 

Great,  not  like  Cresar,  stain'd  with  blood, 

But  only  great,  as  I  am  good. 

In  the  extract  below  we  get  a 
glimpse  of  very  primitive  educa- 
tional conditions.    The  book  vouches 


From  Webster's  The  Little  Reader's  /{ssistant 

The  Buffalo 


From  Webster's  The  Little  Reader's  AssUta$U 

Captain  John  Smith  a  Captive  in  Serious  Danger 

for  what  is  depicted  as  still  true  to 
life  in  some  vicinities,  though  not 
nearly  as  applicable  as  formerly. 
The  scene  is  a  Public  House. 

Enter  SCHOOL-MASTER  lanth  a  pack  on 
his  back 

Schoolmaster.  How  fare  you,  Landlord? 
What  have  you  got  that's  good  to  drink? 

Landlord.  I  have  gin,  West-India,  genu- 
ine New  England,  whiskey,  and  cider 
brandy. 

Schoolm.  Make  us  a  stiff  mug  of  sling. 
Put  in  a  gill  and  a  half  of  your  New  Eng- 
land; and  sweeten  it  well  with  'lasses. 

Land.  It  shall  be  done.  Sir,  to  your  lik- 
ing. 

Then  the  schoolmaster  asks  if  the 
landlord  knows  of  any  vacancy 
in  the  local  schools,  and  is  in- 
formed they-  are  without  a  mas- 
ter in  that  very  district,  and 
the  three  school-committee  men 
were  to  be  at  the  tavern  directly 
to  consult  on  school  matters. 
The  landlord  says  the  last  master 
**was  a  tyrant  of  a  fellow  and 
very  extravagant  in  his  price. 
He  grew  so  important  the  latter 
part  of  his  time,  that  he  had  the 
frontery  to  demand  ten  dollars 
a  month  and  his  board."     He 


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never  patronized  the  landlord's  bar 
and  was  always  in  his  chamber  of 
an  evening  "poring  over  his  musty 
books."  Finally  the  severity  of  his 
discipline  roused  the  neighborhood 
and  he  was  hooted  out  of  town. 

The  three  committee  men  accom- 
panied By  the  parson  at  length  ap- 
peared at  the  tavern,  and  the  school- 
master applies  for  a  position.  He 
acknowledges  that  he  has  never  had 
more  than  a  year's  schooling  and  that 
he  knows  nothing  of  geography  or 
grammar;  but  he  can  read  a  news- 
paper without  spelling  more  than  half 
the  words  and  has  'iarn'd  to  write 
considerably,  and  to  cypher  as  fur  as 
division."  Most  important  of  all  he 
will  work  for  five  dollars  a  month, 
and  the  committee  hire  him.  The 
parson  alone  protests. 

By  far  the  most  copiously  illus- 
trated of  any  of  the  earlier  readers 
was  a  thin  i2mo  published  in  Phila- 
delphia in  1799  called  The  Colum- 
bian Reading  Book,  or  Historical  Pre- 
ceptor, ''a  collection  of  Authentic 
Historic  Anecdotes,  Characters,  etc., 
etc.,  calculated  to  incite  in  young 
minds  a  love  of  virtue,  from  its  in- 
trinsic beauty,  and  a  hatred  of  vice 
from      its      disgusting      deformity." 


From  Columbian  Reading  Book 

The  Clever  Indian 


From  Columbian  Reading  Book 

An  Appeal  to  King  Philip 

From  the  164  short  lessons  I  make 
several  selections. 

SPIRITED  REPROOF  OF  A  WOMAN 
PHILIP,  rising  from  an  entertainment 
at  which  he  had  sat  for  some  hours,  was 
addressed  by  a  woman,  who  begged  him 
to  hear  her  cause.  He  accordingly  heard 
it,  and,  upon  her  saying  some  things  not 
pleasing  to  him,  he  gave  sentence  against 
her.  The  woman  immediately,  but  very 
calmly,  replied,'*  I  appeal."  *'How,"  says 
Philip,  "from  your  king?  To  whom  then?** 
**To  Philip  when  fasting,"  returned  the 
woman.  The  manner  in  which  he  received 
this  answer  would  do  honor  to  the  most 
«ober  prince.  He  afterwards  gave  the 
cause  a  second  hearing,  found  the  injustice 
of  his  sentence,  and  condemned  himself 
to  make  it  good. 

THE  RETORT  COURTEOUS 
A  white  man  meeting  an  Indian  asked 
him,  "whose  Indian  are  you?"  To  which 
the  copper-faced  genius  replied,  "I  am 
God  Almighty's  Indian:  whose  Indian  are 
you?" 

SUCCESSFUL  BRAVERY 
Mr.  GILLET,  a  French  quarter-master, 
going  home  to  his  friends,  had  the  good 
fortune  to  save  the  life  of  a  young  woman, 
attacked  by  two  ruffians.  He  fell  upon 
them,  sabre  in  hand,  unlocked  the  jaw  of 
the  first  villain,  who  held  a  dagger  to  her 
breast,  and  at  one  stroke  pared  the  nails 
of  the  other  just  above  the  wrist.  Money 
was  offered  by  the  grateful  parents;  he  re- 
fused it;  they  offered  him  their  daughter, 
a  young  girl  of  16,  in  marriage;  the  vet- 
eran, then  in  his  73rd  year,  declined,  say- 


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From  Columbian  Reading  Book 

The   Rescue 

ing,  "Do  you  think  that  I  have  rescued 
her  from  instant  death,  to  put  her  to  a 
lingering  one,  by  coupling  so  lively  a  body 
with  one  worn  out  with  age?'* 

Few  of  the  early  text-books  en- 
joyed more  favor  that  Staniford's  Tkc 
Art  of  Reading,  Boston,  1807.  I  re- 
print from  it  a  dialogue  that  was  in- 
tended to  illustrate  the  prejudice  of 
the  vulgar  against  academies.  The 
participants  in  the  conversation  arc 
Old  Trumpet,  Goody  Trumpet  and 
their  son,  Leander. 

OLD  TRUMPET,  alo^ie 

A  plague  and  Satan  confound  such  ig- 
norance, says  I;  what,  the  dog  is  ruin'd 
and  undone  forever  and  'tarnally.  Must 
I  feed  and  pamper  and  lodge  the  puppy? 
ay,  ay,  and  send  him  to  the  Mackademy, 
and  give  him  laming — and  for  what? 
good  Lord,  for  what?  O!  snakes,  toads 
and  dung  worms!  O!  the  Mackademy! 
My  son  Len  will  be  ruin'd! 

Enter  GOODY  TRUMPET,  in  haste 

G.  Trum.  Well,  then  now,  husband  I 
can't,  no,  nor  I  won't  bear  it  any  longer — 
for  would  you  think  it?  our  Leander  is 
gone  crazy  and  *s  a  fool,  and  melirious, 
and — and — 

Old  T.  Yes,  yes,  that's  as  clear  as  the 
sun — that  I'll  vow  to  any  day.  He's  a 
fool,  and  a  dog,  and  crazy,  and— and— 
what  was  the  word  you  us'd? 

G,  T.  Pshaw  I  you're  a  tarnal  pester- 
ment.  You  're  too  old  to  lam  any  thing 
but  how  to  wear  horns — 


Old  T.  No,  no,  that's  a  lie— I've  larni 
that  a  ready — there's  not  a  ram  in  the 
flock  that  wears  horns  more  tremariously 
that  I  do. 

G.  T.  Ha,  ha,  ha!  tremariously,  O  dis- 
travagant!  Well,  my  son's  a  fool  and  my 
husband  a  jack-ass — but  hark  you,  this 
chip  o'  yourn,  this  Mackadimicianer. 
inserts  that  our  tin  quart  is  brim  full, 
when  I  shook,  and  shook,  and  shook 
every  atom,  and  morsel,  and  grain  of 
beer  out  of  it — and  there  was  not  a  bit 
not  a  jot  in  't  any  more  than  there  's  in 
his  head,  not  a  bit  more. 

Old  T.  Ay  ay,  I  warrant  ye,  nothing 
more  brovebler — ^yes,  yes,  and  he  told  me 
about  the  dentity  of  pinticles  in  fire — and 
as  how  the  proximation  to  fire  made  the 
sentiments  of  heat.  Odd's  buds!  He's 
ruin'd,  he's  undone!  Well,  well,  I'll  go  to 
ihe  Protector  (Preceptor),  I'll  pound 
him — I'll  maul  him — I'll  see  if  he'll  make 
Len  a  fool  again — 

G.  T.  Well,  well,  take  him  away,  take 
him  home — I'll  larn  him.  If  you'll  let 
him  alone — I  believe  I  can  make  him 
know  a  little  something.  But  the  concep- 
tor!  I'll  strip  his  head  for  him — I'll  make 
it  as  bare  as  an  egg — -I'll  pull  his  soul  case 
out. 

Old  T.  Why,  good  George!  I  sent  him 
to  the  Mackademy  to  get  laming — If  this 
is  larning,  my  dog  knows  more  than  the 
Protector  and  the  Mackademy  besides. 

Enter   LEANDER 

Old  T.  How  now,  how  now,  coxcomb! 
Why,  Len,  you're  a  fool!  You're  crazy. 
you're  melirious,  as  your  poor  mother 
says. 

Leander.  Sir,  you  know  you  have  a 
right  to  command  your  own,  but  I  think, 
sir,  that  the  abuse  of  such  power  is  worse 
than  the  want  of  it.  Have  I,  sir,  deserved 
such  treatment? 

Old  T,  Yes,  you  have  reserved  the  gal- 
lows— ay,  ay,  Len,  you  must  be  chained 
in  a  dark  room  and  fed  on  bread  and 
water — O   the   Mackademy! 

Leander,  You  may  arraign  me,  sir, 
with  impunity  for  faults  which  I  in  some 
instances  have  been  guilty  of — but  my  im- 
provements in  the  liberal  arts  and  sci- 
ences have  been,  I  believe,  equal  to  most 


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of  my  standing,  and  I  am  confident,  sir, 
that  I  have  asserted  nothing  but  what  is 
consistent  with  the  philosophy  of  our 
time. 

Old  T.  Your  dosolophy  may  go  to  Beel- 
zebub, and  you  with  them,  sir,  and  be 
hang'd,  sir — O  the  Conceptor,  and  Mack- 
ademy  may  go  to  Beelzebub  and  be 
hang'd  and  they  will!  Come  home,  Len, 
you  sha'n't  go  there  any  more,  you'll  be 
ruin'd  and  undone  for  ever,  and  for  'tar- 
nally! 

A  reader  with  a  special  purpose 
was  '*The  Mental  Flower  Garden,  or 
an  Instructive  and  Entertaining 
Companion  for  the  Fair  Sex,"  New 
York,  1808.  It  was  full  of  sugar- 
coated  wisdom  and  mild  sentiment, 
as  was  befitting  in  a  text-book  for 
"female  youth,"  and  no  effort  was 
spared  to  use  highly  polished  and 
becoming  language  on  all  occasions. 
Its  tone  was  very  like  that  it  recom- 
mended for  **epistolatory  writing — 
easy,  genteel  and  obliging,  with  a 
choice  of  words  which  bear  the  most 
civil  meaning,  and  a  generous  and 
good-natured  complaisance." 

Scott's  and  Lindley  Murray's 
readers  were  the  only  ones  by  Eng- 
lish compilers  to  be  widely  circulated 
in  this  country.  Murray's  several 
readers  continued  in  use,  until  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
They  were  stupid-looking,  fine  print 
volumes,  full  of  profundity,  and  never 
lapsed  into  the  shallow  amateurish- 
ness of  some  of  our  American 
schoolbooks.  Yet  the  information 
imparted  was  occasionally  rather 
peculiar,  as  for  instance  what  is  said 
about 

THE  CATARACT   OF  NIAGARA,  IN 
CANADA,   NORTH  AMERICA 

This  amazing  fall  of  a  hundred  and  fifty 
feet  perpendicular  is  made  by   the   river 


St.  Lawrence,  one  of  the  largest  rivers  in 
the  world,  a  river  that  serves  to  drain  the 
waters  of  almost  all  North  America  into 
the  Atlantic  Ocean.  It  will  be  readily 
supposed  that  such  a  cataract  entirely 
destroys  the  navigation  of  the  stream; 
and  yet  some  Indians  in  their  canoes,  it 
is  said,  have  ventured  down  it  in  safety. 

Scott's  book  has  an  introductory 
chapter  "On  the  Speaking  of  Speeches 
at  Schools,"  illustrated  with  four 
plates.  The  text  accompanying  the 
cut  here  reproduced  advises: 

If  the  pupil's  knees  are  not  well  formed, 
or  incline  inwards,  he  must  be  taught  to 
keep  his  legs  at  as  great  a  distance  as 


From  Scott's  Lessons  in  Elocution 

possible,  and  to  incline  his  body  as  much 
to  that  side  on  which  the  arm  is  extended, 
as  to  oblige  him  to  rest  the  opposite  leg 
upon  the  toe;  and  this  will  in  a  great 
measure,  hide  the  defect  of  his  make. 

When  the  pupil  has  got  in  the  habit  of 
holding  his  hand  and  arm  properly,  he  may 
be  taught  to  move  it,  that  is,  to  raise  the 
arm  in  the  same  position  as  when  grace- 
fully taking  off  the  hat.  (Sec  Plate.) 
When  the  hand  approaches  to  the  head, 
the  arm  should,  with  a  jerk,  be  suddenly 
straightened,  at  the  very  moment  the  em- 
phatical  word  is  pronounced.  This  coin- 
cidence of  the  hand  and  voice  will  greatly 
enforce  the  pronunciation. 

Below  is  a  part  of  one  of  the  lighter 
pieces  in  The  Common  Reader^  by  T, 


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Strong,    A.    M.,    Greenfield,    Mass., 
1818. 

THE  FLOWER  GIRL 

'*Pray  buy  a  nosegay  of  a  poor  orphan!" 
said  a  female  voice,  in  a  plaintive  and 
melodious  tone,  as  I  was  passing  the  cor- 
ner of  the  Hay-market.  I  turned  hastily 
and  beheld  a  girl  about  fourteen,  whose 
drapery,  though  ragged,  was  clean,  and 
whose  form  was  such  as  a  painter  might 
have  chosen  for  a  youthful  Venus. 

Her  neck,  without  colouring,  was  white 
as  snow;  and  her  features,  though  not 
regularly  beautiful,  were  interesting,  and 
set  off  by  a  transparent  complexion;  her 
eyes,  dark  and  intelligent,  were  shaded  by 
loose    ringlets    of    a    raven     black,    and 


"You  will  pardon  me  when  I  tell  you 
they  were  the  first  kind  words  I  have 
heard  since  I  lost  all  that  was  dear  to  me 
on  earth." 

"Can  I  leave  this  poor  creature?"  said  I 
pensively.  '"Shall  I  quit  thee,  fair  flower, 
to  be  blown  down  by  the  rude  blast  of 
adversity!  to  droop  thy  lovely  head  be- 
neath the  blight  of  early  sorrow!  No! 
thou  hast  once  bloomed  beneath  the 
cheerful  sun  of  domestic  content,  and 
under  it  thou  shalt  bloom  again." 

My  heart  beat  with  its  sweet  purpose, 
and  the  words  of  triumphant  virtue  burst 
from  my  lips:  "Come,  thou  lovely,  de- 
serted girl!  Come  and  add  one  more  to 
the    happy    group    who   call   me    father! 


From  Strong's  7^  Common  Readtr 

The    Flower    Girl 


poured  their  supplicating  beams  through 
the  silken  shade  of  very  long  lashes. 

On  one  arm  hung  a  basket  full  of  roses, 
and  the  other  was  stretched  out  towards 
me  with  one  of  the  rose  buds.  I  put  my 
hand  into  my  pocket  and  drew  out  some 
silver — "Take  this,  my  pretty  girl,"  said  L 

The  narrator  added  some  kindly 
and  highly  moral  remarks  for  her 
benefit,  and  she  caught  his  hand  and 

burst  into  a  flood  of  tears.  The  action 
and  the  look  touched  my  soul;  it  melted, 
and  a  drop  of  sympathy  fell  from  my 
cheek. 

"Forgive  me,  sir,"  said  she,  while  a 
blush  diffused  itself  over  her  lovely  face, 


Thou  shalt  be  taught  with  them  that  vir- 
tue which  their  father  tries  to  practice." 

Her  eyes  flashed  with  frantic  joy;  she 
flung  herself  on  her  knees  before  me.  I 
raised  her  in  my  arms;  I  hushed  her  elo- 
quent gratitude,  and  led  her  to  a  home 
of  happiness  and  piety;  and  the  poor  or- 
phan of  the  Hay-market  is  now  the  part- 
ner of  my  son! 

The  scene  of  this  story  is  one  of 
the  busiest  parts  of  London ;  but  the 
illustration  which  accompanies  it 
shows  a  New  England  country  road, 
with  three  curious  little  loads  of 
hay  standing  in  a  wayside  field  to 
suggest  a  hay-mart. 


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From  Adam's  The  Monitorial  RtatUr 

A  Retired  Sailor  "Instructing  His  Sister's 
Grandchildren" 


One  read- 
er of  an  un- 
usual   sort 

was      The 

Farmer's 

School   Book, 

Albany,  1837, 

"published  to 

take      the 

place  of  such 

useless,     un- 

intelligib  le 

reading     a  s 

M  u  r  r  a  y'  s 

English 

Reader   and 

other  readers 

in      common 

use,     which 

never  give 
the  children 
one  useful  idea  for  the  practical  bus- 
iness of  life."  The  book  conveys  a 
good  deal  of  information,  but  I  am 
afraid  the  author  was  disappointed 
in  his  expectation  that  **Chymistry, 
The  Nature  of  Manures,  Raising 
Calves,  Making  and  Preserving 
Cheese"  and  similar  topics  which  filled 
out  the  list  of  chapters  would  "sieze 
the  feelings  and  the  attention  of  every 
child  that  is  learning  to  read." 

Another  unusual  reader  of  about  the 
same  date  was  The  Christian  Reader, 
a  stout  volume  entirely  made  up  of 
tracts  except  for  a  half  dozen  hymns 
inserted  at  the  end. 

The  two  excerpts  which  follow  are 
from  The  Monitorial  Reader,  pub- 
lished in  1839  at  Concord,  New 
Hampshire. 

THAT  RED  STUFF 
Father,  said  a  little  Boy  in  the  lisping 
accents  of  youth,  v/hat  is  that  red  stuff 


you  have  just 
been  drinking, 
and  which 
makes  you 
wink  so? 
What  do  you 
call  it?  Hush, 
my  son,  it  is 
medicine.  This 
inquiry  was 
put  by  a  sweet 
looking  child, 
as  I  was  en- 
tering  the 
door  of  a 
grocery  to 
P  u  r  c  h  asc  a 
few  articles 
for  my  family. 
The  trades- 
man had  just 
drained  his 
glass,  and 
leaning  on  a 
cask,  in  which 
was  burned 
the  word  Brandy,  was  wiping  his  mouth 
on  the  sleeve  of  his  coat,  while  the  little 
one  stood  watching  his  motions  wftTi 
a  sweet  affectionate  look  of  the  son, 
blended  with  the  curiosity  and  simplicity 
of  childhood.  "Excuse  me,"  said  I,  "but, 
oh,  tell  your  innocent  reprover  that  it 
biteth  like  a  serpent  and  stingeth  like  an 
adder.     Deceive  him  not." 

The  man  looked  abashed  and  with  a 
private  admonition,  I  left  him. 

The  lesson  closes  with  appropriate 
comments,  but  what  the  drinker  did 
is  not  stated. 

THE  CATAMOUNTAIN. 


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636  IN   WINTER 


THE  POT  OF  BAKED   BEANS 

O!  how  my  heart  sighs  for  my  own  na-  The  pot  of  bak'd  beans!  with  what  plcas- 

tivc  land,  ure  I  saw  it. 

Where  potatoes  and  squashes  and  cu-  Well    seasoned,    well    pork'd    by    some 

cumbers  grow;  rosy   fac*d  dame; 

Where  cheer  and  good  welcome  are  al-  And   when    from   the    glowing   hot   oven 

ways  at  hand,  she'd   draw  it, 

And  custards  and  pumpkin  pies  smoke  Well  crispM,  and  well  brownM  to  the 

in  a  row;  table  it   came; 

Where  pudding  the  visage  of  hunger  se-  O,  give  me  my  country,  the  land  of  my 

renes,  teens, — 

And  what  is  far  dearer,  the  pot  of  bak*d  Of  the  dark  Indian  pudding,  and  pot  of 

beans.  bak'd  beans. 

Let  Maryland  beast  of  her  dainties  pro  The  pot  of  bak'd  beans!    Ah,  the  muse  is 

fuse,  too  frail. 

And    large    water-melons,    and    cante-  Its  taste   to   descant  on,   its  virtues   to 

lopes  fine;  tell; 

Her    turtle    and    oysters,     and    terrapin  But  look  at  the  sons  of^ew  England  so 

stews  hale, 

And  soft  crab  high  zested  with  brand>  And     her     daughters     so     rosy — ^'twill 

and  wine;  teach  them  full  well; 

Ah!    neither    my   heart    from    my    native  Like  me  it  will  teach  thee  to  sigh  for  the 

land  weans,  means 

Where  smokes  on  the  table,  the  pot   of  Of  health,    and   of   rapture! — the    pot   of 

bak*d  beans.  bak'd  beans. 


In  Winter 

By  Clarence  H.  Umer 

IN  the  garden   not  a  verduo.us  sprig, 
Not  one  flower  ablow, 
Not  a  wafture  of  perfume  : 
Nathless,  every  bush  and  twig 
Has  its  gift  of  snow, 
To  atone  for  Winter  gloom, 
And  the  loss  of  summer  gloom. 


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Benedict  Arnold 


Should  We  Despise  Benedict  Arnold  ? 

By  E.   L.  Morris 


IT  is  comparatively  easy  to  sum  up 
a  man's  character  in  a  single 
phrase.  To  say  that  he  is  a 
traitor  is  to  separate  him  from 
his  past  almost  as  hopelessly  as  from 
his  future,  with  this  difference;  that 
for  his  terrible  crime  the  faults  of  his 
youth,  otherwise  forgotten,  are  sum- 
moned to  bear  witness  against  him. 

Yet  the  deeds  of  Benedict  Arnold 
are  so  much  part  and  parcel  of  our 
country's  splendid  history  that  they 
can  never  be  violently  separated 
from  it. 

63» 


In  a  notable  oration  on  the  "Surren- 
der of  Burgoyne,*'  George  William 
Curtis,  standing  on  Bemis*  Heights, 
spoke  of  the  infinite  pity  that  a  nature 
so  heroic  and  with  a  record  so  brill- 
iant should  have  been  driven  by  a 
sense  of  bitter  wrong  and  the  violence 
of  his  passions  to  a  crime  so  inexcus- 
able. 

"On  the  exposure  of  his  treason  it 
bcame  the  passionate  desire  of  a  whole 
nation  to  blacken  Arnold's  character. 
In  their  just  hatred  the  people  wished 
to  make  him  wholly  odious." 


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639 


He  was  denied  a  single  virtue.  His 
bravery  was  only  "Dutch  courage/' 
himself  a  low,  vulgar,  illiterate  horse- 
jockey  and  skipper. 

Marlborough,  according  to  Macau- 
lay,  was  a  double  traitor;  false  to 
James  and  to  the  Prince  of  Orange  in 
turn ;  both  spy  and  traitor.  Yet  Eng- 
land forgave  his  crimes  and  munifi- 
cently rewarded  his  virtues. 

As  a  boy,  Benedict  Arnold  was 
reckless  and  unscrupulous,  the  fearless 
leader  of  boys  in  every  bold  exploit. 

The  restraints  of  New  England  Pu- 
ritanic life  were  intolerable  to  him,  and 
he  doubtless  deserved  the  reputation 
of  young  dare-devil,  which  the  good 
deacons  and  selectmen  of  the  town 
fastened  upon  him.  But  he  was  also 
accredited  with  bravery,  and  his  sym- 
pathies were  always  with  the  weak. 

In  view  of  his  great  crime,  attempts 
have  been  made  to  vilify  his  ancestry; 
and  ordinary  human  nature  is  easy  of 
belief  when  reputation  requires 
thought. 

The  elder  Arnold  was  a  cooper  by 
trade,  and  the  owner  of  several  vessels 
in  the  East  India  traific. 

Very  little  good  can  be  said  of  him, 
except  that  he  had  the  wisdom  to  love 
and  marry  a  high-souled,  noble 
woman,  "distinguished  for  her  piety, 
her  good  sense  and  rigid  Puritan  char- 
acter. 

"She  was  a  strict  Presbyterian  of 
the  type  of  that  day  and  colony;  but 
in  her  this  form  of  Christianity  was 
softened  and  made  sweet  by  a  most 
affectionate  and  kind  disposition." 

In  1 74 1  the  subject  of  this  sketch 
was  born,  in  the  old  Arnold  mansion, 
which  exhibited  in  many  parts  tokens 
of  the  mischievous  boyhood  of  Ar- 
nold   in   whittlings,    brands,    hatchet- 


cuts  upon  beams,  planks  and  doors, 
B,  A.  and  A.  stamped  in  various 
places.  This  house  passed  through 
many  changes,  and  rumor  ascribed  to 
it  supernatural  sounds  and  lights. 

In  the  year  1 800  a  thunderbolt 
shattered  the  windows  and  mirrors, 
breaking  a  passage  out  through  the 
wall.  The  historian  adds  that  this  was 
perhaps  necessary  to  purify  it  from 
the  Arnold  taint. 

When  less  than  fifteen  years  of  age, 
young  Arnold  ran  away  from  home 
and  enlisted  in  the  Old  French  War, 
but  soon  tired  of  its  hardships  and  de- 
serted. 

From  his  youth  he  had  a  passion 
for  war  and  leadership.  Trained  to 
mercantile  pursuits,  he  was  restless 
and  impatient  of  restraint,  reckless  in 
disposition,  and  invariably  unsuccess- 
ful in  trade. 

Arnold  received  an  account  of  the 
Boston  Massacre  while  at  the  West 
Indies.  "Good  God!"  he  wrote,  "are 
the  Americans  all  asleep  and  tamely 
yielding  up  their  liberties,  or  are  they 
all  turned  philosophers  that  they  do 
not  take  immediate  vengeance  on  such 
miscreants !" 

This  is  the  first  note  of  patriotism 
from  the  man  who  was  afterward  to 
shed  his  blood  and  pledge  his  fortune 
in  the  cause  of  his  country. 

The  Rev.  Samuel  Peters  relates 
that  in  1774,  while  he  was  persecuted 
as  a  Tory,  he  had  taken  refuge  in  the 
house  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Hubbard,  and 
armed  it  as  his  castle  with  twenty 
muskets,  powder  and  balls.  When 
Arnold  and  "his  mob"  came  to  the 
gate,  Dr.  Peters  said,  "Arnold,  so 
sure  as  you  split  the  gate,  I  will  blow 
your  brains  out."  Arnold  retired, 
saying,  "I  am  no  coward,  but  I  know 


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SHOULD    WE    DESPISE    BENEDICT    ARNOLD 


Dr.  Peters's  disposition  and  temper. 
I  have  no  wish  for  death  at  present." 

Seven  years  before  this,  in  1767, 
Arnold  had  married  Margaret,  daugh- 
ter of  Samuel  Mansfield,  high  sheriff 
of  the  county.  She  was  "of  good 
family,  young,  interesting  and  ac- 
complished." She  died  in  1775,  while 
her  husband  was  at  Lake  Qiamplain, 
leaving  three  sons,  Benedict,  Richard 
and  Henry,  who  were  tenderly  cared 
for  by  the  sister  of  their  father,  Han- 
nah Arnold,  a  woman  of  strong  and 
lovable  character,  who  never  wavered 
in  loyalty  and  devotion  to  her  brother 
and  his  family.  She  was  a  woman 
of  more  than  ordinary  ability,  high- 
spirited,  warm-hearted,  faithful  and 
sincere.  Her  letters  all  "indicate  a 
gentlewoman  of  refinement,  dignity, 
intelligence  and  much  more  than  ordi- 
nary good  sense  and  judgment." 

It  is  said  of  Benedict  Arnold  that 
whatever  may  have  been  his  faults 
and  misfortunes,  he  had  the  great 
good  fortune  to  have  a  mother,  a 
sister  and  a  wife  each  an  ornament  to 
her  sex:  women  all  of  them  of  the 
purest  character  and  each  attached  to 
him  with  a  devotion  which  nothing 
could  change. 

In  the  early  spring  of  1775  Arnold 
was  chosen  to  be  commander  of  one 
of  the  two  Connecticut  companies  of 
militia  called  Governor's  Guards. 
When  news  of  the  battle  of  Lexington 
was  received  in  New  Haven,  it  caused 
the  greatest  excitement.  Bells  were 
rung,  and  the  people  by  one  common 
impulse  gathered  on  the  Green,  where 
the  captain  of  the  Guards,  in  an  im- 
passioned speech  appealing  to  their 
patriotism,  offered  to  lead  any  number 
of  volunteers  at  once  to  the  scene  of 
action.     Sixtv  of  the  Guards  and  a 


few  students  from  the  college  were 
ready  to  march  the  next  morning. 

Being  destitute  of  ammunition, 
which  the  town  refused  to  supply,  Ar- 
nold sent  a  message  to  the  selectmen 
stating  that  unless  the  keys  of  the 
magazine  were  delivered  to  him  im- 
mediately he  should  break  it  open  by 
force.  The  threat  was  effectual ;  and 
inspired  by  the  ardor  of  their  leader, 
the  company  hastened  to  Cambridge, 
the  headquarters  of  the  troops  that 
were  then  streaming  from  various 
parts  of  the  country  to  resist  British 
aggression. 

Ethan  Allen  was  at  the  same  time 
leading  a  company  of  Green  Mountain 
Boys  toward  Lake  George;  and 
though  Arnold  exhibited  his  commis- 
sion and  claimed  the  command,  the 
volunteers  refused  to  recognize  him, 
placing  greater  confidence  in  their 
own  leader.  Arnold  insisted  upon  his 
rank,  but  issued  no  orders. 

He  was  with  Ethan  Allen  at  Crown 
Point  and  Ticonderoga,  and  in  1775 
was  appointed  with  Montgomery  to 
command  an  expedition  against  Can- 
ada. 

Both  men  were  popular  idols.  Mean- 
time his  enemies  were  magnifying  his 
faults  and  forgetting  his  zeal  and  dar- 
ing. He  was  a  "strong,  proud  hater, 
constant  to  friends,  unyielding  to 
enemies." 

He  was  not  a  rich  man.  Congress 
had  not  settled  accounts  with  him 
for  four  years.  He  had  given  large 
sums  to  the  public  service  and  offered 
a  loan  of  one  thousand  pounds  to  fur- 
nish funds  for  enlistment.  As  a  fight- 
ing general  he  would  have  been  the 
right  arm  of  Washington.  "Had  the 
commander-in-chief  possessed  the 
power  of  appointing  and  promoting 


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the  officers  of  his  army  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  conclusion  of  the  war, 
Arnold^s  treason  would  never  have 
been  committed." 

The  Legislature  of  Massachusetts 
appointed  a  committee  of  three  to  in- 
quire into  the  spirit,  capacity  and  con- 
duct of  General  Arnold,  and  author- 


'Tn  the  midst  of  his  success  he  was 
compelled  to  return  under  a  cloud 
to  Cambridge.  Here  he  soon  after- 
ward met  Washington,  and  from  that 
time  until  his  fall  the  commander-in- 
chief  was  his  steadfast  friend." 

Before   Arnold's   return   from   the 
campaign,  his   wife   died:   a   terrible 


House  of  Benedict  Arnold 


ized  them  to  order  his  return  if  they 
thought  proper.  If  he  remained,  it 
was  to  be  in  a  subordinate  position. 
His  honor  as  a  soldier  was  wounded. 
Not  one  British  post  on  the  New  York 
lakes  had  been  captured  without  his 
zealous  cooperation,  skill  and  daring. 


blow  to  a  man  already  wounded  and 
smarting  under  a  keen  sense  of  injus- 
tice. From  a  letter  of  Gates,  then  ad- 
jutant-general at  Cambridge,  it 
appears  that  Arnold  suggested  the 
Quebec  expedition  to  Washington, 
who  knowing  him   to   be  a   natural 


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leader  of  men,  and  having  full  confi- 
dence in  his  courage  and  ability,  se- 
lected him  for  the  command. 

It  was  late  in  September  when  the 
brave  troops  set  out  to  penetrate  an 
unknown  wilderness.  *'They  waded 
streams,  faced  fierce  storms  of  rain 
and  sleet,  slept  under  the  branches  of 
evergreens.  For  more  than  three- 
quarters  of  a  century  the  adventurous 
step  of  no  man,  red  or  white,  had  trod 
these  solitudes."  Their  food  failed. 
The  weak  and  sick  were  sent  back, 
and  only  the  strong  and  hardy  allowed 
to  go  forward.  Rain  changed  to  snow ; 
men  waded,  breaking  through  snow 
and  sleet.  By  the  last  of  October  they 
had  no  meat  of  any  kind.  The  flour 
vwas  divided,  and  each  man  had  five 
pihts  which  they  baked  under  the 
asheX^  "Some  tried  to  make  soup  out 
of  their  "tjM.jleerskin  moccasins,  but 
although  the  pooTTWte^i.?  J)pijerl  them 
long,  they  were  leather  still." 

There  were  only  two  dogs  with  the 
men.  These  were  killed  and  eaten, 
and  the  bones  saved  and  pounded  to 
make  broth  for  the  next  meal.  Many 
died  of  fatigue  and  hunger  within  five 
minutes  after  sitting  down  to  rest. 

But  such  was  Arnold's  influence 
with  the  men  that  there  was  no  com- 
plaining, though  one  of  their  number, 
a  lad  of  seventeen,  says  quaintly, 
**these  hardships  produced  among  the 
men  a  willingness  to  die." 

Arnold  shared  every  danger,  and 
they  believed  in  his  ability  to  take 
them  through.  At  last  he  climbed  the 
difficult  path  and  formed  his  starving 
army  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham, 
where  sixteen  years  before  Wolfe  had 
died  at  tlie  hour  of  victory.  He 
marched  his  men  up  to  the  walls,  de- 
termined if  possible  to  provoke  a  sally 


and  an  attack  by  the  garrison  as 
Wolfe  had  done,  but  in  vain.  "My 
men,"  says  Arnold,  "were  in  want  of 
everything  but  stout  hearts,  and  would 
have  gladly  met  the  enemy." 

This  act  of  their  commander  has 
been  condemned  as  silly  bravado ;  but 
under  similar  circumstances  Mont- 
gomery was  not  so  stigmatized.  Gen. 
Schuyler,  writing  to  Washington, 
says:  "Colonel  Arnold  has  grea^t 
merit.  He  has  been  peculiarly  unfor- 
tunate that  one-third  of  his  troops 
left  him.  If  the  whole  had  been  with 
him  when  he  arrived  at  Quebec  he 
would  probably  have  had  the  sole 
honor  of  giving  that  important  place 
to  America." 

One  historian  says  that  Arnold 
might  have  taken  Quebec  and  won 
undying  fame,  but  for  the  treason  of 
an  Indian,  who  gave  letters  to  the 
British  commandant. 
-^yqsbine:ton,  ignorant  of  the  re- 
treat, hopes  he  has  met  with  the 
laurels  which  were  due  to  his  trials  in 
the  possession  of  Quebec.  In  the 
Gentleman's  Magazine,  which  gives  a 
minute  description  of  Arnold  at 
Crown  Point  and  Ticonderoga,  it  is 
said:  "Loss  and  defeat  were  so  far 
from  producing  their  usual  effect  with 
respect  to  Arnold  that  his  conduct 
raised  his  character  still  higher  than  it 
was  before  with  his  countrymen.  A 
brave  soldier  and  able  commander, 
when  his  vessels  were  torn  almost 
to  pieces,  he  retreated  with  the  same 
resolution  that  he  fought ;  and  by  hap- 
piest and  most  critical  judgment  pre- 
vented his  people  and  them  from  fall- 
ing into  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  But 
they  chiefly  gloried  in  the  dangerous 
attention  he  paid  to  a  nice  point  ot 
honor  in  keeping  his  flag  flying  and 


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not  quitting  his  galley  till  she  was  in 
flames,  lest  the  enemy  should  have 
boarded  and  struck  it." 

Arnold  went  from  colonel  to  brig- 
adier-general for  leading  the  army 
through  the  wilderness  and  for  gal- 
lantry at  Quebec. 

At  Bemis  Heights  a  Hessian  oflficer 
observes:  "The  enemy  bristled  up  his 
hair  as  we  attempted  to  repair  more 
bridges.  At  last  we  had  to  do  him 
the  honor  of  sending  out  whole  regi- 
ments to  protect  our  workmen."  It 
was  Benedict  Arnold  who  "provoked 
the  honor."  As  a  soldier  and  leader, 
he  was  bravest  of  the  brave,  skilful, 
high-souled.  Bolta,  the  "impartial 
historian,"  says :  "But  for  his  treason, 
the  march  and  assault  upon  Quebec 
would  have  been  a  favorite  theme  of 
poetry  and  eloquence,  and  the  record 
thereof  one  of  the  brightest  pages  of 
American  history,  entitling  him  to  be 
ranked  among  the  great  captains  of 
antiquity. 

"Had  he  died  at  Lake  Champlain 
when  desperately  fighting,  with  a  sin- 
gle vessel,  the  whole  British  fleet,  that 
a  remnant  of  his  own  might  escape, 
or  had  the  bullet  that  shattered  his  leg 
at  Quebec  pierced  his  heart,  many  of 
the  name  would  now  proudly  claim  re- 
lationship." 

"Arnold  thought  it  wise  to  quit  Can- 
ada. He  saw  his  men  embark,  saw 
the  last  boat  leave  the  shore,  then 
mounted  and  rode  back  to  reconnoitre 
the  army  advancing  under  Burgoyne, 
wheeled  just  in  time  to  escape,  at 
the  lake  stripped  his  horse  of  saddle 
and  bridle,  and  shot  him  to  pre- 
vent his  falling  into  the  enemy's 
hands." 

It  is  said  of  him  that  in  battle  he 
rode  like  a  meteor  to  the  front, — ^like 


a  whirlwind  the  regiments  went  with 
him.  He  dashed  through  the  fire  of 
two  lines  and  escaped  unhurt.  When 
his  horse  fell  under  him  he  shouted, 
"Rush  on,  my  brave  boys  I  Rush  on !" 
Shot  by  a  wounded  German  private, 
one  of  his  own  men  seeing  him  fall 
was  about  to  thrust  the  other  through 
with  the  bayonet,  when  Arnold,  pros- 
trate and  bleeding,  cried :  "Don't  hurt 
him  1  He  did  but  his  duty ;  he's  a  fine 
fellow." 

Yet  Congress  was  slow  to  acknowl- 
edge his  claims.  His  juniors  were  set 
above  him.  Washington  writes  to 
Richard  Henry  Lee :  "I  am  anxious  to 
know  whether  General  Arnold's  non- 
promotion  was  owing  to  accident  or 
design,  and  the  cause  of  it.  Surely 
a  more  active,  a  more  spirited  and 
sensible  officer  fills  no  department  in 
your  army." 

It  was  replied  that  Connecticut  had 
already  two  major-generals,  her  full 
share.  Arnold  did  not  resign,  but 
wrote  Washington:  "Every  personal 
injury  is  buried  in  zeal  for  the  Safety 
and  happiness  of  my  country." 

From  some  motive  impossible  now 
to  determine.  Congress  had  long  de- 
nied him  his  proper  rank.  Five  ma- 
jor-generals stood  above  him;  all  his 
late    juniors     now     outranked    him. 

"Arnold's  enemies  were  also  the 
enemies  of  Washington,  who  perhaps 
found  it  easier  to  strike  him  through 
his  favorite  general." 

On  the  eighteenth  of  July,  1778, 
the  British  army  retired  from  Phila- 
delphia, and  on  the  nineteenth  Gen- 
eral Arnold,  by  the  order  of  Washing- 
ton, assumed  command  of  the  city. 
Such  was  the  gayety  and  dissipation 
of  Philadelphia  at  that  time  that  Dr. 
Franklin   said:    "General   Howe   has 


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SHOULD   WE    DESPISE   BENEDICT   ARNOLD? 


not  taken  Philadelphia;  Philadelphia 
has  taken  General  Howe." 

And  while  the  Quaker  City  was  the 
"scene  of  dinner  parties,  cock-fights, 
amateur  theatricals  and  every  amuse- 
ment and  dissipation  idle  men  could 
desire  or  invent,  Washington  with  his 
heroic  army  was  enduring  the  bitter 
hardships,  the  cold  and  starvation  of 
Valley  Forge." 

Among  the  amusements  of  the  win- 
ter was  a  "pageant,  play  and  mock 
tournament  gotten  up  in  honor  of 
General  Howe."  "Miss  Shippen,  who 
was  afterward  married  to  Arnold,  was 
a  celebrated  beauty,  and  a  toast  among 
the  British  officers,  and  Major  Andre 
was  the  charm  of  the  company." 

The  Shippen  name  was  at  that  time 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  and  re- 
spected in  Philadelphia.  "Miss  Ship- 
pen's  extreme  youth,  beauty,  grace- 
fulness, and  personal  magnetism 
drew  to  her  in  love  and  admiration 
every  one  who  came  within  her  influ- 
ence." "In  letters  to  her  father  from 
the  time  of  her  marriage  to  her  death 
there  is  an  exhibition  of  filial  tender- 
ness and  respect,  a  conjugal  devotion, 
purity,  elevation,  dignity,  which  indi- 
cate a  warm  and  affectionate  heart,  a 
Christian  fortitude  and  a  cultivated 
intellect  rare  as  beautiful." 

Arnold  was  but  thirty-six  years  old, 
of  fine  physique,  noble  bearing  and 
unquestioned  patriotism,  bearing  vis- 
ible marks  in  his  appearance  and 
movements  of  the  wounds  he  had  re- 
ceived. His  generosity  in  providing 
for  the  orphan  children  of  his  friend. 
General  Warren,  was  well  known  and 
added  to  the  esteem  in  which  he  was 
held.  In  September  of  this  year  Ar- 
nold wrote  Miss  Shippen:  "Twenty 
times   have   I   taken  up   my   pen   to 


write,  and  as  often  has  my  trembling 
hand  refused  to  obey  the  dictates  of 
my  heart, — ^a  heart  which  though  calm 
and  serene  amidst  the  clashing  of 
arms  and  all  the  din  and  horrors  of 
war,  trembles  with  diffidence  and  fear 
of  giving  offence  when  it  attempts  to 
address  you  on  a  subject  so  important 
as  its  happiness."  At  the  close  of  the 
letter  he  adds:  "Consult  your  own 
happiness,  and  if  incompatible,  forget 
there  is  so  unhappy  a  wretch ;  for  may 
I  perish  if  I  would  give  you  one  mo- 
ment's inquietude  to  purchase  the 
greatest  possible  felicity  to  myself. 
Whatever  my  fate  may  be,  my  most 
ardent  desire  is  for  your  happiness, 
and  my  latest  breath  will  be  to  implore 
the  blessing  of  Heaven  on  the  idol 
and  only  wish  of  my  soul." 

It  was  sneeringly  observed  by  his 
enemies  that  Arnold  had  courted  loy- 
alists from  the  start.  General  Joseph 
Reed,  one  of  the  executive  committee, 
writes  General  Greene  of  a  public  en- 
tertainment given  by  General  Arnold 
in  which  common  Tory  ladies  and 
wives  and  daughters  of  proscribed 
persons,  now  with  the  enemy  in  New 
York,   made  a  considerable  portion. 

It  does  not  seem  to  occur  to  him 
that  the  natural  gallantry  of  a  brave 
soldier  would  prevent  his  stooping  to 
carry  the  feuds  of  the  army  into  the 
drawing-room,  "to  proscribe  the 
wives  and  daughters  of  political  ex- 
iles." 

Arnold's  conduct  was  discussed,  and 
eight  charges  against  him  were  sent 
to  Congress,  together  with  a  letter 
from  President  Reed.  General  Ar- 
nold's first  care  was  to  know  that  he 
had  not  fallen  in  Miss  Shippen's  es- 
teem. 

In  a  public  address  he  alluded  to  his 


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SHOULD   WE    DESPISE  BENEDICT   ARNOLD? 


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faithful  service  of  four  years,  and 
requested  suspension  of  judgment 
until  after  the  trial  by  court  martial. 

Q)ngress  delayed  to  call  up  and 
act  on  reports;  and  although  Arnold 
had  permission  to  resign  the  com- 
mand of  the  city,  he  chose  to  hold  it 
until  Congress  brought  in  a  report 
exonerating  him.  He  then  resigned 
and  urged  Washington  to  appoint  a 
speedy  day  for  the  trial.  As  military 
commander  of  Philadelphia,  his  posi- 
tion had  been  an  unenviable  one. 
There  were  many  loyalists  and  active 
Tories  in  the  city.  In  it  there  was 
much  property  and  merchandise  be- 
longing to  those  who  were  unfriendly 
to  the  cause  of  American  indepen- 
dence. By  resolution  of  Congress,  the 
commander-in-chief  was  directed  to 
suspend  the  removal,  sale  or  transfer 
of  goods  in  Philadelphia  until  a  joint 
commission  of  that  body  and  of  the 
Executive  Council  of  Philadelphia 
should  determine  whether  it  was  the 
property  of  the  king  or  any  of  his 
subjects.  Washington  directed  Gen- 
eral Arnold  to  see  that  this  order  was 
enforced.  It  was  Arnold's  misfor- 
tune that  this  should  be  his  duty,  as  it 
was  an  arbitrary  exercise  of  military 
authority,  which  made  him  an  object 
of  personal  hostility."  His  temper  was 
haughty  and  unyielding,  and  his  ex- 
travagent  styles  of  living  aggravated 
the  dislike  his  military  orders  had 
created." 

"General  Arnold  conducted  his  own 
defence  at  the  trial  which  was  not 
without  an  element  of  pathos.  He 
walked  with  difficulty,  for  the  leg 
broken  at  Saratoga,  and  again  at  Que- 
bec, disabled  him.  But  he  wore  the 
uniform  of  his  rank,  with  the  epau- 
lettes and  sword-knot  which  Wash- 


ington had  presented  to  him  as 
'among  the  bravest  of  the  brave.'  He 
went  through  each  charge  in  detail. 
The  judge-advocate  in  reply  stated 
the  evidence  and  submitted  the  case. 
In  four  days  the  court  met,  and  while 
acquitting  Arnold  of  the  chief 
charges,  sentenced  him  to  receive  a 
reprimand  from  the  commander-in- 
chief.  No  alternative  was  left  Wash- 
ington but  to  publicly  reprimand  and 
disgrace  a  favorite  officer,  though 
nothing  can  be  conceived  more  honor- 
able to  the  generous  feelings  of  Wash- 
ington and  more  delicate  toward  the 
wounded  feelings  of  Arnold.  This 
was  the  beginning  of  the  fall,  which, 
as  Washington  Irving  said,  would 
make  Arnold  sadly  conspicuous  to  the 
end  of  time." 

The  facts  in  connection  with  the 
great  treason  are  too  well  known,  and 
need  'not  be  repeated.  It  is  claimed 
by  Arnold's  apologists  that  his  Tory 
and  loyalist  friends  influenced  him 
to  take  this  step,  on  the  plea  that  the 
cause  was  sure  to  fail,  and  that  he 
could  win  undying  fame  by  reuniting 
the  colonies  to  the  commonwealth. 

''Their  argument  might  be  that 
Romish  France  was  gaining  undue  in- 
fluence over  the  young  colonies,  and 
that  anarchy  would  be  the  result. 
Arnold  began,  Cobbett  revived  this 
clamor  against  France.  It  was 
claimed  that  the  mother  country  was 
ready  to  grant  everything  but  inde- 
pendence. The  colonies  should  im- 
pose their  own  taxes,  make  their  own 
laws.  A  common  cause  and  a  com- 
mon language  would  make  them  in 
connection  with  England  the  most 
formidable  power  in  the  world." 

After  the  war  was  over  John 
Adams  said:  "There  was  not  a  mo- 


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SHOULD   WE    DESPISE    BENEDICT   ARNOLD? 


ment  during  the  Revolution  when  I 
would  not  have  given  everything  I 
possessed  for  a  restoration  to  the  state 
of  things  before  the  contest  began, 
provided  we  could  have  had  a  suffi- 
cient security  for  its  continuation/' 

All  Arnold's  future  depended  on 
reconciliation  with  the  crown.  His 
friends  pleaded  with  him  to  put  an 
end  to  the  cruel  war. 

As  Clive  saved  the  British  empire 
in  India,  they  implored  him  to  save 
it  in  America.  The  wives  and  daugh- 
ters of  the  naked,  barefoot,  starving 
soldiers  in  the  Continental  Army 
would  hail  him  as  their  preserver. 

At  this  time  Washington  writes  to 
General  Schuyler:  *1  hardly  thought 
it  possible  ...  to  keep  the  army  to- 
gether. The  soldiers  eat  every  kind 
of  horse  food  but  hay.  Unless  Con- 
gress and  the  states  act  with  more 
energy  than  they  have  hitherto  done, 
our  cause  is  lost." 

Lafayette  writes^  to  Washington: 
**There  are  open  dissensions  in  Con- 
gress; parties  who  hate  one  another 
as  much  as  the  common  enemy." 

John  Adams  said:  **It  requires 
more  serenity  of  temper,  a  deeper 
understanding  and  more  courage  than 
fell  to  the  lot  of  Marlboro  to  ride  in 
this  whirlwind." 

Colonel  Varick  writes:  *Tt  is  evi- 
dent to  me  that  Gates  never  intended 
to  fight  Burgoyne  till  Arnold  urged, 
begged  and  entreated  him  to  do  it." 

Unmerited  honors  were  lavished  on 
Gates.  Congress  voted  a  gold  medal 
in  his  honor,  and  forgot  the  blood  shed 
by  Arnold.  Smarting  under  a  sense 
of  injustice,  unable  to  pay  his  debts 
because  Congress  neglected  to  settle 
accounts  with  him,  shedding  his 
blood  as  freely  as  he  spent  his  fortune 


for  his  country,  maligned  by  jealous 
enemies  who  brought  cruel  charges 
against  him,  he  still  stood  preeminent 
for  courage,  skill  and  good  conduct. 
Washington's  reprimand  came  at  a 
time  when  he  expected  full  acquittal. 
Whatever  the  feelings  of  the  com- 
mander-in-chief may  have  been,  there 
was  no  escape  from  this  verdict  of  the 
court.  **Our  profession,"  said  he,  "is 
the  chastest  of  all ;  even  the  shadow  of 
a  fault  tarnishes  the  lustre  of  our  fin- 
est achievements.  The  least  inad- 
vertence may  rob  us  of  the  public 
tavor  so  hard  to  be  acquired.  I  repri- 
mand you  for  having  forgotten  that  in 
proportion  as  you  have  rendered  your- 
self formidable  to  our  enemies,  you 
should  have  been  guarded  and  tem- 
perate in  your  deportment  towards 
your  fellow-citizens.  Exhibit  anew 
those  noble  qualities  which  have 
placed  you  on  the  list  of  our  most 
valued  commanders.  I  will  myself 
furnish  you  as  far  as  it  may  be  in  my 
power,  with  opportunities  of  regain- 
ing the  esteem  of  your  country." 

Was  ever  justice  more  nobly  tem- 
pered with  mercy? 

What  motives  Arnold  oflfered  to  his 
own  soul  for  the  betrayal  of  his  coun- 
try we  shall  never  know.  But  we  can- 
not believe  that  they  were  wholly  ig- 
noble. It  is  improbable  that  his  wife 
knew  of  his  traitorous  correspondence 
with  the  enemy.  She  followed  his 
changing  fortunes  to  the  end,  loving 
and  shielding  him  with  purest  devo- 
tion. 

Arnold  once  inquired  of  a  Conti- 
nental officer  who  had  been  taken 
prisoner:  "What  would  be  my  fate  if 
I  should  be  taken?" 

"Your  fate?"  replied  the  captain. 
"They  would  cut  oflF  that  shortened 


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leg  of  yours  wounded  at  Quebec  and 
Saratoga,  and  bury  it  with  all  the 
honors  of  war!  and  then  hang  the 
rest  of  you  on  the  gibbet." 

It  is  said  on  good  authority  that 
Arnold  was  not  present  at  the  burn- 
ing of  New  London,  and  consequent- 
ly not  responsible  for  the  deeds  com- 
mitted there. 

In  December,  1781,  following 
Comwallis's  surrender  in  October  of 
that  year,  Arnold  went  to  England 
with  his  family,  sailing  in  the  same 
ship  with  Cornwallis,  through  whose 
influence  he  afterward  had  many 
private  conferences  with  the  king. 

All  his  hope  for  the  future  lay  in 
the  reconciliation  of  the  colonies  with 
the  crown.  He  had  hoped  to  be  one 
of  the  Peace  Commissioners,  and  so 
appease  the  hatred  felt  toward  him  by 
Americans.  About  this  time  he 
-  changed  the  motto  of  his  seal  from 
**Mihi  gloria  sursum/'  to  ''Nil  des- 
perandutn" ;  a  most  significant  com- 
pient  on  the  mental  struggle  and 
vigor  of  a  baffled  yet  undaunted  man. 

Unable  to  obtain  military  com- 
mand, chafing  under  his  limitations, 
always  embarrassed  financially  from 
his  generous  mode  of  living  and  read- 
iness to  help  those  who  were  in  need, 
he  again  became  a  merchant  in  order 
to  repair  his  broken  fortune  and  edu- 
cate his  family. 

Cornwallis  interested  himself  in 
obtaining  places  for  the  sons  at  a 
government  military  school.  Arnold 
himself  begged  for  service  in  the 
army  even  at  the  West  Indies,  where 
the  fever  was  fatal  to  numbers  of  un- 
acclimated  officers.  'They  will  not 
give  me  a  chance  to  die  a  soldier's 
death";  he  said  to  his  wife. 

Meeting  Tallyrand  at  an  inn,  the 


latter,  who  was  about  to  visit  Amer- 
ica, marked  the  unusual  intelligence 
of  the  man  sitting  at  table  with  him, 
and  inferring  that  he  was  an  Ameri- 
can asked  for  letters  to  prominent 
persons  in  this  country. 

"I  have  not  one  friend  in  Ameri- 
ca," replied  the  other;  "not  one 
friend.     I  am  Benedict  Arnold/' 

After  seven  years'  absence,  Mrs. 
Arnold  visited  her  old  home  in  Phila- 
delphia, but  was  so  coldly  received 
outside  the  family  circle  that  she  was 
grieved  and  unhappy  and  soon  re- 
turned to  England,  where  she  devoted 
herself  to  her  husband  and  children, 
honored  and  beloved  by  all  who  knew 
her. 

At  the  time  of  the  unfortunate 
duel  with  Lord  Lauderdale,  who  had 
used  Arnold's  treason  to  point  a 
moral,  Mrs.  Arnold  suppressed  her 
feelings  lest  she  should  unman  her 
husband  when  he  took  tender  leave 
of  her,  until  for  hours  her  reason  was 
despaired  of. 

Lord  Lauderdale,  in  admiration  of 
her  character,  afterward  begged  leave 
to  wait  upon  her  and  offer  an  apology 
in  person. 

Hamilton  speaking  of  Mrs.  Arnold 
says,  "Her  horror  at  the  guilt  of  the 
traitor  is  lost  in  her  love  of  the  man." 

With  genuine  motherly  affection 
she  kept  up  a  correspondence  with 
the  sons  of  Margaret  Mansfield,  guid- 
ing their  judgment  in  important  mat- 
ters; and  in  the  settlement  of  affairs 
after  her  husband's  death  she  sold 
even  trifling  articles,  that  no  creditor 
should  be  wronged.  She  says,  speak- 
ing in  detail  of  her  children,  "No 
mother  was  ever  more  blessed  in  good 
children  than  I  am." 

An     English     correspondent     who 

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WHEELER'S   HIRED   MAN 


knew  the  family  well,  writes:  "The 
sons  of  General  Arnold  could  not  but 
be  brave;  and  the  sons  of  Margaret 
Shippen  could  not  be  other  than  gen- 
tlemen, and  her  daughter  a  gentle- 
woman." 

Mrs.  Arnold  says  that  as  death 
drew  near  her  husband  was  con- 
stantly imploring  blessings  on  his 
children. 


His  mind  wandered  at  times,  and  in 
imagination  he  seemed  to  be  fighting 
his  battles  over  again.  He  called  for 
his  old  uniform  and  desired  to  put  it 
on,  saying:  "Bring  me,  I  beg  you, 
the  epaulettes  and  sword-knots  which 
Washington  gave  me.  Let  me  die  in 
my  old  American  imiform  in  which  I 
fought  my  battles.  God  forgave  me 
for  putting  on  any  other." 


Wheeler's  Hired  Man 


By  Elliot  Walker 


H 


EY!       Grab      this      fork, 

What's-yer-name,    an'    g^t 

ter    work.       No    use    of 

bein'     willin'     if    yer    no 

hand  et  doin'.     Don't   stan'  starin', 

boy.    Take  holt,  an'  help.    Thar's  a 

shower  comin'." 

Enfield  Wheeler,  from  the  top  of 
the  half-loaded  cart,  tossed  the  long- 
handled  hayfork  in  irritable  haste  at 
the  young  man  below,  who  caught  it 
clumsily,  dodging  the  shining  tines. 

"Don't  try  to  lift  too  much," 
warned  the  farmer  as  his  incapable 
assistant  plunged  the  tool  into  a  heap 
of  the  fragrant  dry  grass  beside  him. 
"I  ain't  responsible  fer  no  broken 
backs,  be  I,  Wat?" 

Watkins  Mix,  helping  him  on  the 
load,  grinned  broadly,  snatching  at 
his  opportunity  for  a  moment's  rest. 
He  winked  at  a  fourth  man,  about  to 
elevate  a  forkful  for  the  disposal  of 
Mr.  Mix,  atid  the  burden  was  lowered 
with  a  nod  of  understanding. 

"Wal!  hardly.  En,"  he  responded, 
drawing  a  bared  wet  arm  across  a 
wetter  forehead.    "A  marciful  man  is 


marciful  to  his  beasts.  Thet  chap 
needs  some  seasonin'  afore  he  kin 
work  with  us  fellers.  Good  on  yer  ter 
treat  him  so  easy.  Lordy!  If  he  ain't 
fell  down  a-tryin'  to  heave  up  a  hull 
cock.  Git  'round  t'other  side.  Bow- 
ley,  an'  unkiver  thet  feller.  He's 
buried  himself." 

"Le'm  alone,"  yelled  Mr.  Wheeler, 
angrily.  "You  idlin'  cusses  git  yer 
hay  on.  He's  wigglin'  out  all  right. 
It'll  rain  on  us  in  ten  minutes. 
Tain't  no  time  to  stand  laffin'  at  a 
blamed  fool." 

Scowling  at  the  unfortunate,  who 
had  slowly  emerged  from  his  cover- 
ing with  a  burning  countenance,  he 
burst  forth: 

"Can't  ye  even  keep  on  yer  legs, 
Richmond?  Hev  I  got  to  git  down 
and  show  ye  how  to  lift  a  leetle  bunch 
of  hay?  Try  ag'in  now.  Aw!  'bout 
half  thet.  Thar!  You're  actilly 
showin'  a  grain  of  sense.  Keep  peg- 
gin'  'em  et  me.  Mebbe  I  kin  lam  ye 
somethin'  yit." 

The  exhausted  victim  fell  to  with 
fresh   energy,    forcing   a   laugh,   al- 

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though  his  eyes  glittered  with  the 
light  of  a  sensitive  spirit,  humiliated 
and  angry.  With  blistered  hands, 
aching  head  and  trembling  limbs,  he 
toiled  bravely. 

Old  Wheeler's  hard  face  mellowed. 
'* Comes  hard,  I  know,  when  you  ain't 
used  to  it,"  he  encouraged.  "You've 
wore  yerself  out  rakin'.  Arter  this 
load's  in  I'll  gin  ye  a  rest.  The  three 
on  us  kin  mow  away  in  the  bam. 
Gee!  was  thet  a  drop  on  my  nose? 
Run  her  up  now,  boys!" 

Richmond  Lacy  walked  slowly  to 
the  house,  as  the  horses  backed  their 
cargo  to  the  bam  loft.  "Ye  needn't 
come  back,"  Enfield  called  after  him. 
"Mis'  Wheeler'll  gin  ye  a  drink  of 
milk.  Tell  her  I  said  so.  Ye  done 
the  best  ye  know  how." 

"Dunno  how  I  come  ter  hire  the 
critter,"  added  he,  apologetically  to 
his  sunburned  helpers.  "He  jest 
begged  me  into  it.  Never  see  a  farm 
afore,  I  guess.  Poor  feller!  in  two 
days  he's  'most  killed,  but  I  ain't 
meant  to  be  overbearin'.  I'm  demed 
if  I  don't  like  the  boy  fer  the  way 
he's  tried,  but,  sho!  he's  wuss'n 
nothin'." 

"What  yer  payin'  him?"  inquired 
Mr.  Mix,  cautiously. 

"Wal!  he  said  if  I'd  gin  him  a  try, 
we  could  agree  on  thet  afterwards," 
replied  Enfield.  "Says  he,  'What  I'm 
fer  is  ter  git  exercise  an'  I'ara  farm 
work.  I'll  bargain  ye,'  he  says. 
'Here's  five  dollars,  an'  if  I  ain't  eara't 
my  board  by  the  end  of  the  week,  it's 
youra.  Golly!  I  dunno  whether  ter 
gin  it  back  er  not,  he's  such  a  nui- 
sance. 'Course  'twas  a  bluff  to  git  a 
job,  an'  I  only  took  it  in  fun." 

Mr.  Mix  screwed  an  intelligent  eye 
at  Mr.  Bowley. 


"Course!"  he  affii*med. 

"Got  exercise  enough,  but  ain't 
larned  much,"  commented  tliat  wor- 
thy. "Seems  proper  ter  me,  consid- 
erin'  all  we're  doin'  fer  him,  thet  a 
dollar  apiece  would  be  'bout  the  thing. 
Ye  might  hand  him  back  the  rest." 

"Ye  graspin'  rascal!"  spluttered 
Wheeler.  "  'Twas  only  in  joke  I 
took  it.  He  fairly  pressed  it  onto  me. 
Quit  yer  gabbin'  an'  hive  in  that 
hay.  I'm  blessed  if  the  boy  ain't 
wuth  the  two  on  ye  for  endeavorin'. 
I  hire  ye  ter  work,  not  gass  all  day." 

"Wal,  son,"  greeted  a  motherly  old 
woman  from  the  back  door  as  Rich- 
mond paused  by  the  well  curb,  "yer 
look  clean  beat  out.  Now,  say,  what 
yer  doin'  this  fer?  Farmin'  ain't  yer 
hne  an'  never  will  be.  Don't  try  ter 
fool  me.  I've  raised  boys.  Them 
clothes  of  your'n  was  made  fer  yer, 
an'  I  guess  I  know  cloth.  You've 
laid  down  an'  wallered  an'  rubbed 
mud  on  'em  an'  wrinkled  'em  so's  they 
look  like  castoffs.  They  ain't.  I 
kin  take  thet  suit,  clean  an'  press  it 
an'  'twon't  show  a  month's  wear. 
Still,  this  ain't  my  business  unless  you 
think  so.    Is  it?" 

The  man  raised  his  tired  face  to  the 
kindly  eyes  and  smiled  dismally,  shak- 
ing his  head. 

"Enfield  ain't  observin',"  pursued 
his  interlocutor,  "elseways  he'd  know 
more.  He  says  ter  me,  'Ervy  (my 
name's  Ervina),  the  lad's  got  a  good 
face,  but  he  looks  pretty  tough.  Be- 
in'  short  handed,  I'll  try  him,  but  I 
imagine  he  won't  stay  the  week  out. 
Can't  stand  the  work.  Thar*s  some- 
thin'  queer  about  him,  but  he's  so 
anxious — 'twon't  do  no  harm  ter  take 
him  on.  He's  wuth  his  board 
prob'ly.' " 

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WHEELER'S   HIRED  MAN 


Again  Lacy  smiled.  "Fm  begin- 
ning to  doubt  it/'  he  said.  "But  you 
won't  lose  anything.  I've  a  little 
money." 

"Don't  talk  that  way,"  reproved  the 
old  woman.  "Come  in  the  kitchen. 
It's  beginning  to  rain.  I'm  going 
ter  get  you  a  tumbler  of  my  black- 
berry wine.  Thar!  set  on  the  lounge 
an'  cool  off." 

Presently  she  returned  with  a  com- 
forting potion.  "Sip  it  easy,"  ad- 
vised Mrs.  Wheeler.  "It's  quite  re- 
vivin'." 

Lacydecided  this  information  to  be 
correct.  The  sweet,  strong  beverage 
stole  through  his  veins  and  he  sighed 
comfortably,   feeling  affably  inclined. 

"Yes,"  he  remarked,  "it  comes  a 
bit  hard  on  a  fellow  who  isn't  used  to 
it.  I've  always  considered  myself 
fairly  strong,  but  this  kind  of  exercise 
rather  bothers  me." 

"What  yer  tryin'  it  fer  then?"  The 
lady  apparently  ignored  the  fact  of 
his  being  only  a  hired  man,  and  as- 
sumed the  position  of  one  ready  for 
confidences.  Somehow,  her  attitude 
drew  him  from  his  reticence. 

"Just  a  notion.  To  tell  the  truth, 
I  have  been  all  upset  lately,  and  I 
made  up  my  mind  to  get  away  from 
my  thoughts  by  change  of  scene  and 
real  hard  work — the  sort  that  makes 
a  man  so  tired  he  can't  think.  Now 
and  then  a  man  needs  to  lick  himself 
into  something,  and  I've  picked  this 
way.  I'll  do  it.  Others  have.  I 
don't  mind  telling  you  this  much,  but 
you  mustn't  let  Mr.  Wheeler  know." 
He  yawned  and  laughed  weakly. 
**Bless  me,"  he  said,  "I  could  go  to 
sleep  this  minute." 

"Why  don't  yer?  Stretch  yerself 
out  on  the  old  soiy  an'  have  a  nice 


nap  afore  supper.  Then  you'll  feel 
like  eatin'.  No,  I  won't  let  on,  an'  I'll 
treat  you  ord'nary,  same  ez  if  I  didn't 
know,  smoothin'  things  a:  leetle,  meb- 
be,  for  my  husband  is  liable  ter  put 
it  onto  yer  purty  severe  without 
thinkin',  he  bein'  sech  a  worker  an' 
tough  ez  leather." 

Stealing  away  as  Lacy  settled  him- 
self, the  good  soul  mused :  "I  knowed 
from  the  fust  he  was  puttin'  on. 
Jerushy!  The  wine  went  to  his  head 
a  mite,  I  guess.  Over  it?  I  wonder 
what?" 

Creeping  back  in  a  few  minutes,  the 
woman  scrutinized  the  sleeper  with  an 
inquisitive  eye.  Her  g^ay  head  nod- 
ded with  little  jerks  of  discernment, 
and  her  face  clouded.  "Thet's  fevery 
breathin',"  she  whispered.  Tlie  toil- 
worn  hand  touched  Lacy's  brow. 
"Hot  an'  dry.  Can't  be  it's  a  sick 
spell.  No,  overdone  himself  in  thet 
pesky  sun  an'  the  heat's  dryin'  on 
him.  Perhaps  that  wine  checked  his 
prespiratioii.    Hadn't  orter,  though." 

The  kindly  gray  eyes  were  full  of 
worry  as  they  gazed  on  the  clean-cut, 
youthful  features,  blistered  and  red 
from  the  July  scorching.  "Ain't  over 
twenty-one;  skin  like  a*  baby's,"  she 
muttered.  "If  he's  really  ailin'  I'll 
put  him  in  the  spare  room,  I  don't 
care  what  En  thinks.  The  attic 
chamber's  like  an  oven.  I  kinder 
hope  he  will  be  a  leetle  sick.  Ill 
sorter  enj'y  nussin'  him." 

"Where's  thet  lazy  coot  of  a  Rich- 
mond?" asked  Mr.  Wheeler,  coming 
noisily  in  to  supper.  "I've  thought 
of  a  lot  of  things  to  set  him  at. 
Wash  up,  boys,  an'  git  yer  grub  eat." 

Mrs.  Wheeler  stuck  out  her  jaw, 
a  sign  of  waning. 

"In   bed!"   she   answered   shortly. 


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WHEELER'S   HIRED   MAN 


651 


"What  do  yoti  mean,  Enright  Wheel- 
er, by  nigh  murderin'  a  boy  like  him 
an*  bringin'  on  fevers?  Couldn't  ye 
see  he  wasn't  able  ter  stand  up?  The 
fault  is  your'n." 

"Wh — whare  is  he?"  gasped  her 
husband  in  wrathful  anxiety. 

"Spare  room,"  belligerently. 

"Thunderation !  woman.  Ye  ain't 
put  him  thar!  Confound  the  critter. 
Move  him  into  the  attic  whar  he  be- 
longs." 

"I  won't!"  snapped  his  spouse,  her 
eyes  sparkling  with  the  light  of 
battle. 

"A  man  what's  paid  ye  five  dollars 
fer  a  week's  board  is  entitled  to  com- 
forts. Well  may  ye  look  'shamed, 
Enright  Wheeler.  The  idee  of  yer 
takin'  thet  boy's  money!  Last  words 
he  said  afore  he  become  looney  was 
thet  he  gin  it  to  ye  an'  'twould  help 
out.  Says  he,  'Don't  worry!  I've — ' 
an'  then  he  trailed  off.  Worry?  I 
ain't  a-worryin'  about  Aim.  It  comes 
nigher  hum  than  thet." 

"  'Twas  a  joke,"  quavered  Enright, 
"an'  his  own  offer." 

Mr.  Mix  and  Mr.  Bowley  grinned 
somewhat  tremulously.  When  the 
usually  amiable  housewife  became 
thoroughly  aroused,  the  "men  folks" 
were  as  lambs  in  the  presence  of  a 
lioness.  Rare  occasions,  but  momen- 
tous. 

"Set  down,  you  two  gigglin' — er— 
pigs.  An'  you.  En!"  rapped  the 
withering  voice.  "Eat  an'  git  out. 
Not  a  word!  Hear!  I'm  runnin' 
this  house.  Help  yourselves;  I 
shan't."  She  disappeared  with  a 
flounce  and  the  men  hurried  through 
a  bolting  process  in  silence,  then  has- 
tened to  their  chores  with  sly  and  un- 
comfortable glances  behind  them. 


Upstairs  the  woman,  dropping  her 
anger  as  one  would  fling  aside  a  gar- 
ment, was  all  tenderness  and  watchful 
care,  noting  every  symptom  with  a' 
practised  eye,  smoothing  the  pillows, 
renewing  the  bandages,  soothing  the 
sufferer  with  gentle  word  and  hand, 
administering  household  remedies  of 
well-tried  efficacy. 

"It's  broke  already,"  .she  breathed 
at  last  with  a  thankful  sigh.  "Mercy ! 
I  thought  it  was  goin'  hard  the  way 
his  pulse  kited  up.  To-morrow  he'll 
be  all  right,  but  Til  keep  him  in  bed 
a  couple  of  days." 

And  outside,  Mr.  Wheeler  turned 
fiercely  on  his  whispering  men,  catch- 
ing a  derisive  mutter  regarding  fe- 
male tempers.  "Dry  up !"  he  snarled. 
"I'll  bat  yer  heads  together  in  a  min- 
ute. Mis'  Wheeler's  right,  an'  no  af- 
fair of  yourn."  For  En  was  devoted 
to  his  better  half,  and,  while  given 
to  a  loud  manner,  bowed  meekly  to 
the  rod  when  it  descended,  but  suf- 
fered none  to  criticise  the  outbursts  of 
Ervina.  Perhaps,  hard,  shrewd  man 
though  he  was,  he  loved  her  the  more 
for  that  invincible  spirit  which  defied 
him.  Anyway,  he  sought  immediate 
peace  as  soon  as  the  storm  was  over. 

Ervina  took  the  milk  pails,  eyeing 
the  ingratiating  countenance  scorn- 
fully. They  were  sufficiently  sub- 
dued to  extinguish  her  last  spark  of 
wrath  and  she  smiled  grimly  and 
spoke. 

"He's  better." 

"Good!"  exclaimed  Enright,  warm- 
ly. "Ye  done  the  propter  thing  to 
put  him  in  a  cool  room.  Takes  you  ter 
lessen  down  f every  attacks,  Ervyl 
'Member  mine?" 

"Ain't  likely  ter  fergit  it,"  returned 
his  better  half  with  a  pacific  chuckle. 


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WHEELER'S   HIRED  MAN 


*'rd  *most  like  ter  hev  a  poor  spell 
fer  yer  nursin',"  complimented  Mr. 
Mix,  leering  cheerfully. 

"Me  too,  by  jinks!"  chimed  Bow- 
ley,  who  had  never  known  a  sick  day. 

"Wal,  Fd  dose  ye,  ye  sinners!" 
threatened  Ervina,  laughing  at  last. 
"Go  finish  yer  work,  smoke  yer  pipes 
an'  git  ter  bed  airly." 

"Mebbe  FU  let  ye  up  jest  ter  put 
yer  clothes  on  an'  set  'round,"  she 
announced  to  her  pleading  patient  the 
next  afternoon.  "The  fever's  gone, 
but  you're  weak,  my  boy.  Fve  fixed 
yer  suit  an'  ironed  the  white  shirt  ye 
had  on  when  ye  come.  Dress  up  like 
a  gent.  You'll  feel  better.  Anyway, 
yer  flannel  shirt's  in  the  tub,  so  ye'll 
hev  to.  Don't  ye  dare  stir  out  of  the 
house,  though." 

"Fll  do  anything  you  say.  Was  I 
so  sick?  Wliat  happened?  To-mor- 
row I  can  go  to  work  again,  can't 
1?"  Lacy's  tone  held  an  anxious 
note.  "Did  I— did  I  say  much?"  he 
queried. 

"Askin'  questions  is  ag'in  rules," 
said  Ervina,  evasively.  "No,  nothin' 
ter  speak  of.  Rambled  some,  thet's 
all.  No,  sir,  ye  can't  work  till  I  say 
so.  P'raps  Fll  find  some  light  job 
ter  keep  ye  from  thinkin'."  She 
looked  at  him  keenly. 

"That's  it!"  replied  the  man.  "Do 
find  something  for  me." 

"I'll  be  in  my  settin'  room  when  ye 
want  me.  Take  it  easy  a-puttin'  on 
>er  duds,  an'  if  ye  hev  a  dizziness 
come  onto  ye,  set  right  down," 
charged  his  hostess,  departing. 

Ervina  was  sewing  industriously 
when  her  invalid  crawled  into  her  re- 
treat. 

*'I  do  feel  a  bit  seedy,"  he  accosted, 


faintly.      "Guess     Fll    go    back     to 
bed." 

"You'd  better  then.  Fll  be  up 
pretty  soon.  Let's  feel  your  pulse. 
Hum!  Yes — ^you  git  atween  them 
sheets  ag'in." 

As  Lacy  disappeared,  both  hatids 
went  to  her  forehead  in  thought.  **I'll 
find  out,"  she  muttered,  "and  not  tell 
no  great  amount  of  lies  neither." 

Ten  minutes  later,  sitting  by  his 
bedside,  her  soothing  voice  began  a 
mild  process  of  mendacious  extrac- 
tion. 

"Yer  pa's  name  is  same  ez  your'n,  . 
ain't  it?  Leastways  thet's  what  I 
gathered,  when  you  was  ramblin'. 
About  the  Bank,  I  mean.  An'  thet's 
in  New  York.  Don't  jump,  honey! 
'Course  I  couldn't  help  hearin'.  It's 
no  'count." 

"Oh,  well,  if  you  know,  there's  no 
use  hiding  it,"  weakly  from  the  pil- 
low. "Anyway,  I  won't  go  back, 
it's  more  his  fault  than  mine." 

"Cert'nly  it  is!"  Ervina  was  tak- 
ing advantage.  "  Twill  do  him  no 
harm  to  talk,"  she  smiled  inwardly. 
"His  pulse  ain't  bad.  Movin'  'round 
set  it  goin'." 

"He  warn't  very  consid'rit,"  she 
added  with  a  sympathetic  stroking  of 
his  fingers.  "He  said  too  much,  I 
think."    This  bold  manoeuvre  told. 

"I  felt  as  badly  as  any  one  about 
losing  my  diploma."  ("What's  thet?" 
thought  Ervina).  "I  only  just  missed 
it,  anyway.  Oh!  if  I  had  studied  a 
little  harder,  but  I  supposed  I  was 
safe.  The  governor  always  said,  'Be 
popular,  Rich!  be  popular!'  and  gave 
me  all  the  money  I  wanted.  That's 
the  trouble.  A  fellow  can't  be  up  late 
every  night  having  a  good  time  and 
do  the  book  work  too.    He  said,  'It's 


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the  friends  you  make  in  college  that 
count.  Don't  be  fast  and  overdo  it. 
You  won't  be  that,  I  know,  but  you're 
too  quiet,  Rich.  Be  in  with  the 
crowd,  ril  pull  you  through.  I 
know  how.' " 

Ervina  coughed,  seeing  light. 
*'Yes?"  she  encouraged. 

**But  he  didn't  know  how  when  he 
ran  up  against  the  Faculty.  They 
turned  him  down  hard,  and  he  was 
the  maddest  man  you  ever  saw — not 
only  at  them  but  at  me.  Swore  I'd 
disgraced  him,  and  carried  on  shame- 
fully, when  really  I  hadn't,  Mrs. 
Wheeler.   I  studied  all  I  had  time  for." 

"Of  course  you  did,"  confirmed 
Ervina,  "an'  then  he—?" 

"And  then  he  told  me  1  could  have 
a  job  as  messenger  in  the  Bank — 
where  I  would  be  under  his  eye.  Im- 
agine it!  The  president's  son,  and  a 
kid's  position.  He  wouldn't  even  let 
me  go  on  the  books.  I  tried  it  two 
weeks.  It  rained  every  day  and  I 
pegging  all  over  the  city." 

"Dear  me !"  sighed  Mrs.  Wheeler. 

"Then  I  walked  into  his  room  and 
said  I  wanted  a  decent  place,  and  we 
both  got  talking  red  fire!  *ril  quit!' 
said  I,  and  he  sneered,  asking  what  I 
intended  to  do,  and  saying  I  was  en- 
tirely dependent  upon  him.  *Go  out 
in  the  world  and  try  it,'  said  he ;  'you'll 
looks  at  things  in  a  different  light  in 
about  three  days.  When  the  non- 
sense is  worked  out  of  you,  come 
back.  I  presume  I'll  have  to  provide 
for  you.' 

"He  never  thought  I'd  go,  but  I 
did.  I  turned  and  went  straight  out 
of  the  Substantial  National  Bank, 
and  Richmond  Lacy,  Senior,  won't 
see  me  again  in  a  hurry.     No!  he 


"S— sh!"  reproved  Ervina.  "Don't 
get  so  he't  up !  What  did  the  rest  of 
your  folks  say?" 

."There's  only  father  and  me;  that's 
the  worst  of  it."  His  voice  was  very 
near  tears.  "He's  a  fine  man,  too, 
but  awfully  set  and  overbearing  when 
he  gets  his  back  up.  I  never  crossed 
him  before.  We  have  been  a  great 
deal  to  each  other,  or  used  to  be  when 
I  was  small.  The  last  few  years 
we've  sort  of  grown  apart.  He  is  a 
very  busy  man.  I  suppose — well — 
there  is  no  use  supposing — I'll  never 
go  back." 

Two  drops  rolled  down  his  cheeks, 
but  his  mouth  set  resolutely. 

"So  I  took  a  train  just  as  I  was — 
never  stopped  for  a  thing,  and  the 
first  night  I  stayed  at  a  little  hotel," 
he  went  on.  "I  was  pretty  sure  I 
could  get  something  to  do  on  a  farm 
at  this  season.  I  did  rub  dirt  on  my 
clothes  in  order  to  look  tough. 
Three  houses  I  tried  before  I  came 
here.  Lucky  for  me  you  took  me  in. 
Honestly,  I've  tried  to  feel  right 
toward  father,  but  I  can't.  I've 
simply  got  to  forget  everything  and 
work.  Maybe,  if  I  do  well,  he  will 
be  sorry  some  day.  I'd  just  like  to 
walk  in  on  him  some  day  and  say, 
'Here's  a  few  hundred  on  account  of 
what  I  cost  you  in  making  myself 
popular.'  I'd  make  him  take  it,  too. 
That's  all,  Mrs.  Wheeler.  It's  been 
a  relief  to  tell  some  one,  and  you 
won't  speak  of  it." 

"No!"  assented  Ervina.  "I  won't 
speak  a  word.  I  guess  you'll  have 
to  stay  abed  a  couple  of  days.  It's 
a  worryin'  case  an'  I  know  best.  Go 
to  sleep,  now,  an'  forgit  yer  woes." 

"Writin'  ain't  speakin',"  observed 
the    old    woman,    piously,    "an',  I 

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WHEELER'S   HIRED  MAN 


scurcely  asked  a  question,  did  I? 
When  things  come  to  my  hands  I 
hev  ter  do  'em." 

She  wiped  the  pen  on  ati  heirloom 
of  a  penwiper,  sealed  her  letter  and 
eyed  the  superscription  approvingly. 

"Maybe  Vd  orter  hev  put  ^Senior' 
afore  *Esq/  an'  ^Substantial'  didn't 
leave  no  room  for  *Bank'  on  the  same 
line,  but  it's  all  right — an'  I'll  walk 
over  to  the  postoffice  an'  mail  it  my- 
self," reflected  Ervina  with  a  cluck  of 
satisfaction.  '*  'Twas  my  duty  an'  I 
done  it." 

At  supper,  on  the  evening  of  the 
next  day,  Enright  spoke. 

"Lacy  gittin'  along  purty  well?  I 
see  he  ain't  up  yit." 

"I'm  hopin'  ter  hev  him  on  his  legs 
to-night.  Hark!  Ain't  thet  a  team 
stoppin'?  Sounds  like  a  double  rig. 
Some  one  comin'  up  the  walk.  I'll 
go,  En." 

Her  wrinkled  cheeks  were  bright 
with  excitement  as  she  ran  through 
the  hall. 

On  the  stone  step  a  man  stood,  a 
portly,  stern-featured  individual  of 
imposing  appearance.  Behind  his 
heavy,  gold-rimmed  eyeglasses  shone 
a  pair  of  round,  blue  orbs  charged 
with  anxiety. 

"Mrs.  Wheeler?"  he  asked  brusque- 
ly. 


"Thet's  my  name.     Mr.  Lacy?" 

"Yes.  Where's  my  boy?"  The 
words  came  out  with  a  strangled 
jerk.  He  put  out  his  hand  and 
wrenched  Ervina's  with  a  quivering 
clasp  that  spoke  a  volume  of  relief 
and  gratitude. 

"Right  up  them  stairs.  Second 
room  ter  the  left.  He's  improved 
wonderful  sence  I  writ.  I  s'pose 
it's  safe  ter  take  him  home  to- 
night." 

She  listened  by  the  banisters,  then 
turned  suddenly  away  with  a  Kttle 
sob,  although  she  smiled  happily. 

"Guess  I  don't  want  to  hear  no 
more  of  thet,"  whispered  Ervina  and 
wiped  her  spectacles. 

"I'm  sorry  ter  lose  my  hired  man," 
remarked  Enfield  jocularly,  standing 
by  the  wheel  as  the  stout  man  tucked 
his  son  into  the  carriage.  He 
glanced  cautiously  at  his  wife,  waving 
a  good-bye  from  the  porch. 

"By  the  way,"  he  added,  "afore  I 
forgit  it,  here's  thet  five  dollars  you 
gin  me  to  keep  fer  ye.  I  swan  it 
most  slipped  my  mind." 

The  young  man  laughed.  "Put  it 
back,"  he  said.  "I  didn't  earn  my 
board." 

"Wal!"  responded  Mr.  Wheeler 
indulgently,  and  tucked  the  bill  in  a 
handy  pocket,  "jest  ez  you  say." 


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Gift-Making 

By  Mrs.  James  Farley  Cox 


IF  there  is  anythini^  more  curious- 
ly complex  than  the  art  of  gift- 
making  the  ordinary  experience 
of  our  lives  regarding  ordinary 
things  does  not  disclose  it.  It  seems 
the  most  simple,  natural  thing  in  the 
world  to  do,  this  offering  of  a  token 
of  feeling, — love,  congratulation,  com- 
pliment, deference, — whatever  the 
emotion  may  be,  but  the  attend- 
ant thoughts,  mistakes,  perplexities 
and  failures  to  give  pleasure  are  myr- 
iad in  number.  Just  at  this  season 
of  the  year,  the  festival  of  good-will 
and  love,  it  is  an  endlcfss  source  of 
amusement  and  interest  to  hear  the 
comments  and  questionings  of  those 
whose  chief  occupation  for  nearly 
the  entire  month  of  December  is  the 
preparation  and  purchase  of  Christ- 
mas gifts. 

Out  of  much  meditation  on  the 
subject  I  have  evolved  one  or  two 
quite  illuminating  results,  to  find  that 
these  conclusions  have  the  test  of  fre- 
quent application.  The  most  impor- 
tant of  these  has  a  droll  side  to  it: 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  one  hundred 
articles  purchased  are  bought  to  please 
the  purchaser!  The  wandering  eye 
suddenly  grows  bright:  "Here  is  the 
very  prettiest  (or  most  useful)  thing 
I  ever  saw."  Not  one  thought  is 
given  to  how  it  will  affect  the  re- 
cipient! Many  an  unselfish  woman 
draws  heavily  upon  her  purse  and 
carries  home  in  triumph  what  her 
own  heart  really  covets,  in  order  to 
gratify  some  one  whose  habits    or 


education  preclude  any  chance  of 
appreciation.  It  leaves  the  donor 
saying  wistfully :  "How  I  wish  that 
the  Fates  would  decree  that  I  should 
receive  one  like  this,"  and  the  recip- 
ient sighs,  looks  affectionately  at 
the  accompanying  card,  and  says: 
"What  in  the  world  shall  I  do  with 
it?" 

This  is  such  an  unconscious,  un- 
intentional performance, — the  buyer 
is  so  deadly  in  earnest  and  so  eager 
to  please,  even  to  the  extent  of  self- 
sacrifice, — that  the  mere  irrationality 
of  it  is  full  of  an  amusing  psychical 
revelation  to  the  student  of  mental 
cause  and  effect.  Men  are  particu- 
larly apt  to  find  their  chief  enjoy- 
ment in  their  share  of  gifts  at  any 
festival  season  from  the  amusement 
found  in  their  incongruity  and  use- 
lessness. 

Mr.  Riis  tells  us  of  the  extreme 
happiness  of  two  children  in  the  low- 
est, poorest  portion  of  the  tenement 
district  for  which  he  has  done  such 
valiant  work,  from  the  finding  of  a 
small  gilded  paper  fish,  dropped  by 
some  purchaser  of  trifles  for  a 
Christmas  tree.  The  glittering  paper 
shone  bravely,  and  a  loop  of 
thread  from  the  fish's  mouth  allowed 
it  to  dangle  from  the  finger  and 
show  all  its  glory.  A  lover-lad  of 
ten  years  old  stood  waiting  eagerly 
for  the  appearance  of  his  ragged 
sweetheart,  a  little  girl  of  eight,  and 
when  she  came  he  offered  his  treas- 
ure with    a    triumphant    smile.      He 


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GIFT-MAKING 


bade  her  hold  out  her  grimy  little 
finger  and  he  dexterously  slipped 
the  thread  over  it  and  turned  the 
hand  quickly  that  the  light  might 
strike  the  gold.  "Thercf's  your 
Christmas,  Rosy!  Ain't  it  fine?" 
The  dual  rapture  was  complete. 

In  the  bare  and  cheerless  room 
which  was  the  so-called  home  of  the 
girl,  unusual  cleanliness  was  visible, 
and  in  the  eastern  comer,  space  was 
cleared  to  accommodate  a  barrel,  the 
head  of  which  was  covered  with  a 
bit  of  spotless  white  cotton.  On  this 
the  superfluous  fragments  lopped 
from  a  too  luxuriant  spruce  tree, 
found  at  the  street  cornefr,  stood  in 
unsteady  fashion,  decked  with  loops 
of  pink  twine  as  sole  adornment, 
and  a  "blessed"  candle  was  placed 
beside  it  ready  to  shed  its  Christ- 
mas light.  With  inexpressible  de- 
light Rosy  hung  her  shining  gift 
upon  a  twig  of  the  sturdy  green 
branch ;  here  was  something  beauti- 
ful indeed.  The  Holy  Mother  on 
the  wall  seemed  to  smile  as  she  saw 
it.  In  the  great  city,  it  might  read- 
ily be  true,  that  here  was  displayed 
the  gift  which  had  given  the  great- 
est pleasure  of  any  of  the  millions 
exchanged  on  the  consecrated  night. 
To  the  donor  it  had  brought  the  joy 
of  discovery,  the  joy  of  possession, 
the  joy  of  self-sacrifice  in  giving  it 
up  at  love's  bidding!  To  the  re- 
ceiver it  had  brought  a  wonder — she 
did  not  doubt  that  it  was  gold — of 
rich  endowment,  and  the  triumph  of 
receiving  and  offering  the  golden 
treasure  of  a  new  argonaut!  With 
all  our  expenditure  of  care  and 
thought  and  money,  would  that  we 
could  achieve  such  a  success. 

One  other  discovery  I  have  made 


beside  the  unconscious  choice  to 
please  ourselves ;  we  give  too  much. 
After  excluding  the  members  of  our 
closest  family  circle — husbands  and 
wives,  parents  and  children,  broth- 
ers and  sisters,  within  which  near 
unity  all  sense  of  obligation  ceases 
— we  take  from  the  grace  of  our 
gifts,  as  soon  as  We  include  the  ma- 
terial value  which  is  dominant  and 
manifest.  It  destroys  the  vital  germ 
of  perfection  in  any  gift  when  the 
first  thought  it  imposes  is  its  cost. 
Perhaps  the  true  progression  of  emo- 
tion is  first  of  one's  self,  when  a 
wrapper  discloses  its  contents: 
"How  glad  I  am  to  own  this !"  Next 
the  warm  flow  of  affectionate  ap- 
preciation of  the  giver :  "No  one  else 
would  have  thought  of  it."  When 
these  feelings  with  quick  fervor 
flood  our  hearts,  gift  and  giver  have 
enriched  a  life! 

If  happily  our  art  permits  us  to 
supply  a  need  with  grace  and  in  a 
way  that  leaves  the  recipient  free 
from  a  suspicion  of  a  savor  of  com- 
passion or  patronage,  we  are  indeed 
blessed.    The  large  class  of  impov- 
erished, single  gentlewomen  who  so 
daintily  try  to  conceal  the  piteous 
decay   in    their    wardrobes,   are    so 
gladdened  by  a  bit  of  delicate  lace  or 
a    handkerchief    which    is    fine    and 
sheer.     The  thousand  and  one  re- 
quirements of    a    fastidious    lady's 
taste    give    such    enviable   opporttmi- 
ties  of  renewing  in  them  that    de- 
lightful   sensation    of    wearing   the 
things  "suitable  to  their  social  po- 
sition."    But   it   takes  that   form  of 
tact  and  keen  discernment    that  is 
not  a  common  endowment  to  avail 
one's  self  of  this  enviable  chance. 
The  faintest  intimation  that  the  ap- 


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GIFT-MAKING 


657 


pearance  of  the  dear  woman  has 
shown  that  she  is  shabby  plants  a 
sting  which  the  beauty  of  the  gift 
cannot  heal. 

Even  the  respectable  poor,  to 
whom  wcf  turn  with  a  sigh  of  re- 
lieved assurance  of  being  on  the 
right  track,  seldom  like  to  be  in  any 
way  reminded  that  you  fear  that 
they  are  hungry  and  cold.  An  ad- 
jective deftly  qualifying  the  nature 
of  a  gift — more  coal,  a  fresh  blanket, 
a  fat  turkey — is  a  delightfully  sooth- 
ing aid  to  the  acceptance  of  the 
things  which  a  workingman  and 
woman  feel  they  should  have  been 
able  to  provide  by  their  own  labor 
for  themselves  and  their  children.  A 
curate  in  one  of  our  large  parishefs 
not  long  ago  revealed  the  delicate 
sympathy  and  clear  comprehension 
with  which  he  did  his  duty  as  an  al- 
moner. "Our  poor  are  required  to 
come  for  their  Christmas  dinners 
and  wait  with  their  baskefts  on  their 
arms.  I  wish  it  were  the  rule  to 
send  to  their  houses.  Many  who 
would  rejoice  at  the  possession  stay 
away.  A  strong  man,  being  penni- 
less, because  out  of  work,  feels  him- 
self an  object  of  shamcf  in  such  a 
procession,  yet  his  appetite  is  keen. 
The  delicate  widow,  who  once  had 
a  good  husband  and  a  comfortable 
home,  feels  she  is  disgracing  her 
past."  The  protection  we  can  insure 
to  such  as  these,  while  we  relieve 
their  poverty,  is  of  as  much  value 
as  the  gift. 

"The  gift  without  the  giver  is 
bare,"  says  the  poet,  and  in  this  lies 
thcf  larger  part  of  the  mystery  and 
art  of  gift-making.  More  long  lists 
of  names  which  half  the  world  of 
Christian  people  carry  about  with 


them  while  preparing  for  Christmas, 
which  might  be  headed,  "Something 

for "  and  from  which  each  weary 

day  allows  them  to  erase  few  or 
many,  as  good  luck  and  strength 
permit,  are  in  themselves  a  proph- 
ecy of  futile  efforts  and  disappointed 
hopes. 

He  or  she  who  commences  her 
search  by  looking  for  an  unknown 
something  is  sure  to  come  to  grief. 
It  is  a  far  more  effective  contribu- 
tion to  the  Christmas  joy  of  the 
world,  and  an  infinitely  greater 
help  to  the  love  and  good-will  we 
desire  to  stimulate,  to  make  fewer 
gifts,  and  give  to  each  of  these  so 
much  of  ourselves  as  comes  from 
loving  care  and  forethought,  and 
the  decision  to  find  the  very  thing 
which  affection  ought  to  be  able  to 
discover  to  be  a  probably  unfulfilled 
wish  in  the  hearts  of  our  dear 
ones. 

Gifts  of  mere  courtesy  are  of  lit- 
tle worth.  Gifts  of  so-called  neces- 
sity, from  a  sense  of  obligations  to 
be  paid  off,  are  unworthy  of  so  fine 
and  generous  an  appellation;  they 
are  merely  "a  payment  in  kind." 
I  have  grave  doubts  whether  they 
ever  'give  either  satisfaction  or 
pleasure.  There  is  a  large  chance 
that  the  creditor  feels  the  repay- 
ment very  inadequate. 

The  whole  impulse  to  give  has  its 
sublime  and  inspiring  origin  in  that 
greatest  gift,  which  only  omnipotent 
power  and  quenchless  love  could 
make ;  narrowed  by  no  bounds, 
united  by  no  territory,  embracing 
all  humanity  in  its  mighty,  immeas- 
urable largesse.  Let  the  maker  of 
Christmas  gifts  who  finds  in  the 
act  only  a  weariness,  a  burden  upon 


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658  THE    CRUSADER'S    HYMN 

time  and   money,   turn  his  or  her  "Love  came  down  at  Christinas, 

11             j.v.         1^   1             ^x            «TT  Love  all  lovely,  Love  Divine, 

back  on  the  whole    matter.        He  l^^^  ^^  q^^  ^^  ^U  ^^^^ 

disquieteth  himself  in  vain  1"  Some-  Love  for  plea  and  g:ift  and  sign" 

thing  may  have  been  bought  and  Herein  lies  the  joy  of  it  all,  and 

sent    to    another,  but  it  is  only  a  lacking  this   chiefest    essential    all 

Christmas  gift  in  name.  gift-making  is  in  vam. 


The  Crusader's  Hymn 

By  Mary  Lord 

AH!    Whither  then? 
Where  lead  my  laggard  feet? 
My  heart  is  tired. 

And  rest  alone  is  sweet, 
Ah,  rest  is  sweet! 

Within  my  heart 

The  voice  of  honor  cries, 
"  Tis  not  for  thee  to  rest 

Till  won  the  skies. 
Up  and  arise. 

"Look  far  above, 

There  watch  the  shining  throng 
Of  those  who  here 

Have  bravely  fought,  and  long. 
And  have  been  strong. 

"Though  deepest  fear. 
Though  pain  thy  spirit  bow, 

Hold  fast  thy  soul; 
The  crown  is  on  thy  brow. 

The  victory  now. 

"  'Tis  not  for  him 

Whose  heart  can  know  no  fear. 
But  for  the  soul  who  holds 

His  courage  dear, — 
And  scorns  his  fear." 


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O 

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The 

New  England  Magazine 


Niw  Series 


FEBRUARY,  1904 


VOL.  XXIX  No.  6 


Recent  Developments  in  American 
Park  Systems  ^.-j^o'wir 

By  Frederick  W.  Coburn 


i-** 


0" 


THIS  is  a  land  of  great  cities, 
and  in  no  respect  has  Amer- 
ican life  shown  greater  im- 
provement in  the  past  dec- 
ade than  in  the  department  of  civic 
art.  The  average  American,  immersed 
in  business  cares  and  the  complex 
problems  of  living  in  a  great  city,  is 
very  apt  to  take  the  parks,  boule- 
vards, public  bath-houses,  gymna- 
siums and  libraries  as  a  matter  of 
course,  hardly  realizing  the  wonderful 
development  that  has  taken  place 
within  a  few  years  and  that  is  still 
going  on.  Yet  in  every  section  of  the 
United  States  efforts  have  been  made 
or  very  shortly  will  be  made,  to  render 
the  rapidly  growing  centres  of  popu- 
lation better  places  to  live  in.  One 
can  hardly  name  a  great  city  of  the 
land,  or  even  a  lesser  one,  in  which 
something  notable  is  not  being  done 
for  civic  betterment.  Chicago,  to 
take  a  shining  example,  has  under 
way  the  improvement  of  its  whole 
vast  lake  front,  involving  important 
additions  to  its  already  great  park  sys- 
tem.   Again,  New  Orleans  has  lately 


i'LO     3 

entered  upon  pl>K^^^gl^^utifi9j?|tion 
and  sanitation  invom!^  ^  -  ^^»  ^t*'^ 
ture  of  millions  of  dollars,  and  Balti- 
more, long  famous  for  its  Druid  Hill 
Park,  will  not  rest  satisfied  with  hav- 
ing a  single  playground  for  its  people, 
but  will  shortly  begin  the  creation  of  a 
number  of  other  admirable  parks. 
Or,  to  take  an  example  of  a  city  of 
the  second  class,  Memphis  has  lately 
entered  upon  a  scheme  for  laying  out 
some  large  civic  reservations  which 
will  convert  this  hustling  town  on  the 
clay  bluffs  into  one  of  the  most  attrac- 
tive cities  in  the  Mississippi  valley. 
Or  once  more,  Worcester  in  Massa- 
chusetts is  planning  extensive  im- 
provements around  its  beautiful  Lake 
Quinsigamond,  long  dedicated  to 
park  purposes.  In  almost  no  state 
where  there  are  cities  of  any  size  has 
this  movement  for  civic  betterment 
failed  to  make  itself  felt.  The  Pacific 
coast  cities  have  all  felt  the  impulse, 
and  San  Francisco  and  Los  Angeles, 
Seattle  and  Portland  have  begun  to  do 
things  which  are  an  earnest  of  great 
achievements  in  the  future.     In  busy 

66i 
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RECENT  DEVELOPMfeNtS 


Dallas  the  local  improvement  associ- 
ation has  begun  to  convert  a  big  over- 
grown manufacturing  town  into  a 
well-organized  city.  Indianapolis,  De- 
troit, Cincinnati,  Atlanta,  Omaha, 
Pittsburgh,    Springfield,   and   two   or 


of  good  business.  Hard-headed  busi- 
ness men  in  the  American  commu- 
nity of  to-day  will  not  sanction  the  ex- 
penditure of  money  for  municipal  pur- 
poses unless  they  see  some  compen- 
sating gain;  but  it  has  become  a 
principle  pretty  well  recognized   that 

t 

r 


Lafayette  Square,  New  Orleans.     A  Small  City  Park  of  Type  Familiar  To  Most 

Southern  Cities 


three  score  other  of  important  Amer- 
ican municipalities  have  already  cre- 
ated park  systems,  and  even  those 
cities,  such  as  Denver  and  Salt  Lake 
City,  which  are  in  the  midst  of  too 
spectacular  scenery  seemmgly  to  need 
much  civic  adornment,  are  neverthe- 
less playing  their  part  in  the  drama 
of  improvement. 

Of  course  the  main  point  in  all  this 
movement  lies  in  the  discovery  that 
good  appearance  in  a  town  is  a  matter 


porary  visitors  prefer  to  sojourn  in 
it  rather  than  in  some  ill-kept,  sodden 
aggregation  of  shops  and  dwelling 
houses. 

Certainly  there  are  two  types  of 
cities  in  the  United  States,  one  of 
which  has  already  discovered  from  a 
good  many  yeais  of  experience  the 
business  value  of  civic  improvements ; 
the  others  of  the  second  type  have 
accepted  the  experience  of  the  older 
communities  and  are  making  ample 


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IN    AMERICAN    PARK   SYSTEMS 


663 


preparations  for  growth  along  simi- 
lar lines.  As  a  characteristic,  and 
perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  exam- 
ple, of  the  former  class  there  stands 
Boston,  the  community  which  has 
certainly  developed  the  most  compre- 
hensive park  system  and  arrange- 
ments for  the  public  amusement  to  be 
found  in  the  United   States;  of  the 


date  than  those  of  New  York, 
where  Central  Park  was  estab- 
lished in  1850,  has  as  a  result  of 
years  of  experimentation  advanced  to 
the  first  position  among  American 
cities  in  the  matter  of  civic  improve- 
ments, and  this  position  it  seems  likely, 
though  pressed  closely  in  generous 
rivalry  by  other  cities,  to  hold  for  a 


Among  the  Live  Oaks 

City  Park,  New  Orleans,  Is  a  Typical  Southern  Reservation  Filled  With 

Magnificent  Trees 


other  class,  Kansas  City,  which  pro- 
portionately to  its  present  population 
has  already  spent  the  largest  amount 
of  money  of  any  American  city  upon 
its  park  system,  may  be  regarded  as 
the  foremost  example. 

Boston,  although   its   fnost   impor- 
tant    developments     are     later     in 


good  many  years  to  come.  The  New 
England  metropolis  has  unquestion- 
ably had  assistance  from  the  experi- 
ence of  the  Massachusetts  Village  Im- 
provement Association  which  lately 
celebrated  its  fiftieth  anniversary,  hav- 
ing been  started  in  Stockbridge,  in 
October,    1853.     In   Boston  the  first 


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664 


RECENT  DEVELOPMENTS 


public  baths  were  established  in  1866, 
and  the  first  public  playground  in  the 
adjacent  suburb  of  Brookline  in  1872. 
The  great  open  air  gymnasium  in  the 
Charlesbank  Park,  the  first  of  its 
kind  in  America,  was  completed  in 
1892.  But  even  in  Boston,  old  city  as 
it  is,  the  greatest  accomplishments 
have  been  brought  alx)ut  since  1893. 
Within  one  decade  the  Metropolitan 
Park  system,  which  has  been  made  to 
embrace  some  thirtv-seven  towns  with- 


milHon  people  a  system  which  com- 
prises urban  playgrounds,  city  parks, 
public  gardens,  school  gardens,  rural 
parks,  including  forest  reserves,  a 
mountain  reservation,  river  bank 
parkways  and  seashore  reservations. 
Nor  is  Boston  standing  still,  waiting 
for  other  communities  to  catch  up. 
There  are,  as  an  example  of  the  new- 
est developments,  plans  in  progress 
which  will  convert  the  Back  Bay,  the 
broadening  of  the  Charles  River  just 


The  Pathway  up  Blue  Hill 

A  Characteristic  Outlook  in  the  Big  Forest  Reservation  Ten  Miles  South  of 

THE  State  House  in  Boston 


in  eleven  miles  of  the  golden  dome  of 
the  State  House — the  Hub  of  the  Uni- 
verse, as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  de- 
lighted to  call  it — has  been  laid  out  as 
a  model  of  what  public  playgrounds 
may  be,  and  has  brought  about  the  so- 
lution of  a  great  number  of  problems 
of  municipal  management  of  public 
pleasures.  Within  the  short  period 
of  eight  years  there  has  been  thrown 
open  for  the  benefit  of  more  than  a 


before  it  enters  the  sea,  long  a  fetid 
though  picturesque  salt  water  estuary, 
into  a  beautiful  fresh-water  lake,  sur- 
rounded on  either  side  by  noble  archi- 
tectural adornments  and  spanned  by 
the  most  artistic  bridge  yet  projected 
on  the  American  continent. 

Each  year  in  fact  sees  some  signifi- 
cant improvement  in  the  Boston  park 
system.  Thus  during  this  past  sum- 
mer for  the  first  time  since  1894,  when 


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IN    AMERICAN    PARK   SYSTEMS 


665 


the  land  comprising  it  was  purchased, 
the  Blue  Hill  reservation,  the  largest 
civic  park  in  America,  comprising 
more  than  5,000  acres  of  forest  land 
and  containing  a  range  of  hills,  the 
chief  peak  of  which  is  the  highest 
point  of  land  on  the  Atlantic  coast 
from  Maine  to  Mexico, — this  noblest 
of  all  rural  parks  was  really  brought 
within  the  reach  of  the  teeming  popu- 


certain  sooner  or  later  to  provide 
themselves — one  totally  devoid  of  the 
merry-go-rounds,  the  menageries,  the 
malls,  carrousels  and  "greetings"  of 
parks  more  formally  laid  out,  such  as 
Franklin  Park  in  Boston,  Central 
Park  in  New  York,  Fairmount  Park 
in  Philadelphia  or  Lincoln  Park  in 
Chicago.  In  this  reservation,  which, 
like  the  Middlesex  Fells,  also  in  the 


In  Boston's  Forest  Reservation 
Great  Blue  Hill,  the  Crowning  Point  of  the  Largest  Civic  Park  in  America 


lation^of  the  Hub  by  the  completion  of 
an  electric  car  line  out  to  it,  and  by  ar- 
rangements within  the  reservation, 
particularly  on  the  beautiful  Hoosic- 
whisick  Lake,  for  the  entertainment 
of  the  people. 

The  Blue  Hill  park  may,  indeed,  be 
regarded  as  the  forest  park  of  the  fu- 
ture— with  which  very  many  cities  are 


Boston  system,  represents  a  departure 
from  the  semi-rural  parks,  such  as 
Bronx  Park,  or  Prospect  Park  in  the 
Greater  New  York,  not  even  a  seat 
has  been  established  along  the  road- 
ways and  trails  for  the  benefit  of  the 
wayfarer,  but  everywhere,  except  in  a 
few  well-defined  spots,  as  on  the  lake 
just  mentioned,  it  has  been  purposed 


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666 


RECENT  DEVELOPMENTS 


to  preserve  something  of  the  charac- 
ter of  the  wild  forest  and  to  give  to 
the  people  of  the  city  wilderness  an- 
other wilderness  in  which  they  easily 
fancy  themselves  in  the  Maine  woods, 
where  they  may  hunt,  if  not  with  the 
rifle,  at  least  with  the  camera  and  the 
naturalist's  collection  box ;  where  they 
may  not  beat  the  trees  or  break  down 
the  bushes,  but  where  they  may  gather 
berries   and   nuts   to   heart's   content. 


introduced  that  will  mar  the  character 
of  the  reservation,  certain  works  of 
embellishment  are  now  in  progress, 
among  the  most  notable  of  which  is 
the  Charles  Eliot  Memorial  Bridge, 
spanning  a  gully  on  the  northeast  side 
of  the  Great  Blue  Hill.  This  struc- 
ture is  to  be  a  memorial  to  the  late 
Charles  Eliot,  son  of  the  president  of 
Harvard,  and  well  known  as  a  land- 
scape  architect   who   was   associated 


The  Meteorological  Station  on  Great  Blue  Hill 

This  Observatory  on  the  Highest  Point  of  the  Blue  Hill  Reservation  Has 

International  Fame  For  Its  Private  Scientific  Achievements 


With  its  whole  area  situated  entirely 
within  twelve  miles  of  the  State  House 
and  nearer  still  to  Boston's  centre  of 
population, — for  the  great  growth  of 
the  community  has  been  toward  the 
south, — this  forest  reserve  may  truly 
be  regarded  as  one  of  the  greatest 
recent  contributions  of  the  Hub  to  the 
science  of  civic  improvement. 
Yet,  although  nothing  is  likely  to  be 


with  the  Messrs.  Olmsted  in  profes- 
sional practice.  The  bridge  will  be 
the  most  prominent  architectural  fea- 
ture in  a  circular  footpath  which  is 
being  laid  out  about  the  summit  of  the 
hill. 

That  Boston  is  already  reaping  the 
benefit  of  its  woodland  areas,  its  bou- 
levards connecting  the  city  and  state 
parks,  and  its  general  scheme  of  beau- 


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IN    AMERICAN    PARK   SYSTEMS 


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tification  is  shown  by  the  increasing 
number  of  people  from  every  part  of 
the  country  who  come  to  the  New 
England  city  to  settle,  led  to  it  often 
not  so  much  by  its  business  oppor- 
tunities, excellent  though  these  are, 
as  by  the  conditions  which  make  it  a 
g'ood  place  to  live  in. 

Now  if  Boston  may  be  taken  as  the 


fact  every  western  city  of  importance 
is  awakening  to  the  necessity  of  being 
more  attractive.  But  Kansas  City 
has  secured  what  may  probably  be 
regarded  as  the  happiest  results.  At 
all  events  the  harmonious  system  of 
parks  and  boulevards  in  Kansas  City 
is  something  which  impresses  every 
visitor  the  moment  he  begins  to  look 


A  Pleasant  Spot  in  the  Paseo 

The  Celebrated  Boulevard  Traversing  the  Residential  District  of  Kansas 

City  Contains  Many  Delightful  Formal  Attractions 


type  of  the  eastern  city  which  has 
long  profited  by  its  devotion  to  the 
idea  of  civic  improvement,  Kansas 
City  may  be  accepted  as  perhaps  a 
not  less  notable  type  of  the  progres- 
sive western  city.  Not  that  it  stands 
alone — 'Louisville,  Cleveland,  Cincin- 
nati,  Minneapolis  and   St.   Louis,   in 


about  him.  It  is,  furthermore,  the 
growth  of  a  single  decade,  for  though 
the  plans  were  laid  somewhat  earlier, 
practically  all  the  work  for  the  adorn- 
ment of  Kansas  City  has  been  done 
since  1894. 

Utilization  of  natural  features  and 
attempts  to  avoid  formalism  in  any 


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RECENT  DEVELOPMENTS 


but  the  most  thickly  settled  parts  of 
the  city  are  among  the  features  that 
especially  characterize  Kansas  City's 
park  system  and  make  it  notable 
among  western  muncipalities.  The 
principle  seems  to  have  been  pretty 
well  established  that  formal  and  Ital- 
ianate  features  may  properly  be  intro- 
duced into  a  small  city  park  sur- 
rounded   by   more   or   less   elaborate 


residential  region,  we  find  an  elon- 
gated parkway  known  as  the  Paseo, 
filled  with  conventionalized  though 
thoroughly  artistic  adornments,  con- 
taining a  Pergola,  a  neat  little  lake, 
a  playground  with  public  bathhouses 
and  other  attractions. 

But  Kansas  City  also  has  what  per- 
haps nearly  every  city  so  situated  will 
have,  a  system  of  outlying  parks  con- 


THE  Lake  in  the  Paseo 
Charming  Naturalness  Characterizes  Most  of  Kansas  City's  Park  Features 


buildings ;  but  that  all  reservations  for 
the  public  on  the  outskirts  of  the  town, 
or  in  the  surrounding  country,  should 
so  far  as  possible  exemplify  the  nat- 
ural conditions  of  vegetation  and 
scenery  to  be  found  in  the  environ- 
ment. This  principle  is  to  be  noted 
very  clearly  exemplified  in  the  Kansas 
City  system,  where,  in  the  heart  of  the 


nected  with  each  other  and  with  the 
central  parks  by  boulevards.  Two 
of  the  most  picturesque  of  these  per- 
haps extend  along  the  dividing  line 
between  the  residential  portion  of  the 
city  and  the  low  lands  on  which  the 
great  stock  yards  and  other  indus- 
trial enterprises  are  located  along  the 
Missouri  and  Kaw  rivers.     In  other 


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The  Cliff  Drive 
A  Popular  Thoroughfare  in  Kansas  City's  North  Terrace  Park 


words,  these  are  park  reservations 
along  the  high  bluffs,  the  unsightli- 
ness  of  which  in  former  days  was 
something  that  held  Kansas  City  up 
to  scorn  and  even  ridicule.  To-day, 
however,  the  North  Terrace  Park 
with  Its  beautiful  drives  and  its  spec- 
tacular outlooks  over  the  smoky  val- 
ley of  the  Missouri,  and  the  West 
Terrace   Park,   rising  well   kept  and 


well  wooded  above  the  stock  yards, 
are  models  of  what  small  civic  reser- 
vations should  be. 

The  improvement  of  the  network  of 
hnes  of  the  Metropolitan  Street  Rail- 
way Company  through  extensions  and 
through  abandonment  of  cable  traction 
in  favor  of  electricity  has  made  these 
parks  very  useful  to  the  entire  city. 

Then,  too,   Kansas   City  has,  like 

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RECENT  DEVELOPMENTS 


Boston,  acquired,  and  will  presently 
develop,  a  great  rural  reservation,  one 
which  will  prove  to  be  more  and  more 
a  pleasant  recreation  ground  for  the 
ever  increasing  population  of  the  city. 
This  is  the  Thomas  H.  Swope  Park  of 
about  2,000  acres,  a  large  tract  of  the 
Missouri  country  traversed  by  a  pict- 
uresque stream,  the  Blue  River,  now 
open,  with  but  few  restrictions,  for 
the  benefit  of  those  who  care  for 
wandering  in  the  woods  or  for  camp- 
ing out.  This  park  is  at  present 
somewhat  inaccessible  to  the  people 
of  Kansas  City,  just  as  Boston's  Blue 
Hill  reservation  was  until  very  recent- 
ly, but  it  is  understood  that  the  park 
is  soon  to  be  made  accessible  by  an 
easy  trolley  ride. 

These  two  cities  of  Boston  atid 
Kansas  City  represent  probably  the 
most  remarkable  achievements  in  this 
country  up  to  date.  Other  commu- 
nities are  pressing  forward  in  the 
same  direction,  and  it  may  he  reported 
at  almost  any  time  that  Buffalo  or 
Providence  or  Galveston  will  go 
them  better.  Just  at  present  two 
ideas  of  civic  improvement  which 
have  recently  come  into  vogue  are 
the  "Harrisburg  plan"  and  the  'im- 
provement of  Washington,"  both  of 
which  represent  scientific  methods 
and  enthusiastic  citizenship.  In  Wash- 
ington it  is  hoped  to  improve  upon 
the  magnificent  designs  of  Major 
L'Enfant,  which  George  Washington 
approved,  and  which  gave  to  the  cap- 


ital city  its  remarkable  system  of 
streets  and  avenues,  its  admirable 
parks  and  boulevards.  Harrisburg^, 
in  its  turn,  has  with  its  league  for 
municipal  improvement,  projected  a 
plan  for  employment  of  expert  ad- 
vice, and  stands  ready  to  sanction  the 
expenditure  of  more  than  one  million 
dollars  in  bonds  for  the  improvement 
of  its  system  of  parks,  boulevards, 
playgrounds,  street  paving  and  other 
municipal  institutions. 

All  these  represent  great  achieve- 
ments, but  perhaps  in  the  entire  ag- 
gregation of    American   cities    none 
will  fifty  years  hence  have  a  more  as- 
tonishing array  of  parks,  boulevards 
and  playgrounds  than  Seattle,  which 
is  just  now  making  up  its  mind  what 
it  is    willing   to   do    for    the    future. 
Plans  for  an  extraordinarily  compre- 
hensive system  have  been  drawn  up 
by  an  Eastern  architect,  whereby  the 
decorative  elements  of  the  most  ex- 
quisite landscape  region  in  the  United 
States    may    be    fully    utilized — the 
deep  bays  of  Puget  Sound,  with  their 
wooded    shores    and    headlands,    the 
dark  lakes  that  are  at  the  city's  back 
door,  the  stately  fir  forests,  some  of 
which  have  as  yet  been  spared,  and, 
finally,    the    glorious    mountains,    of 
which   Rainier    is    the    loftiest    and 
most  sparkling.     In  the  midst  of  such 
surroundings,  Seattle,  soon  to  be  the 
empress  of  the   Northwest,  is  natu- 
rally anxious  to  make  the  best  of  her- 
self. 


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A  German  Family  from  South  Germany 


Immigration  From  Abroad  Into 
Massachusetts 

A  Casual  Survey  of  Its  Character  and  Influence 
A  Negative  View 

By  Philip  Edmund  Sherman 


IT  is  assumed  by  an  increasing 
number  of  people  that  the  pres- 
ent comparatively  unrestricted 
tide  of  immigration  into  the 
United  States  is  in  general  a  men- 
ace to  its  social  and  industrial  life. 
Doubtless  many  who  are  seemingly 
indifferent  to  the  subject  have  only 
a  vague  conception  of  the  char- 
acter and  quality  of  this  inflow 
of  humanity;  of  its  immediate 
and  potential  results  upon  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  community;  and  of  the 
ability  of  the  native  population  to  as- 


similate the  elements  thus  forced  upon 
it.  Of  the  general  character  of  immi- 
gration, as  well  as  the  nature  of  the 
task  of  assimilation  imposed  upon  the  ^ 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts  by 
the  annual  accession  of  50,000  or 
more  aliens  to  its  population,  an  indi- 
cation is  afforded  by  an  analysis  of 
(i)  the  industrial,  (2)  the  financial, 
and  (3)  the  intellectual  status  of  the 
ten  chief  racial  groups  that  came  to 
this  State  during  the  past  year.  Such 
an  analysis  is  given  in  the  following 
table,    based    upon     statistics     taken 

671 
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672  IMMIGRATION   FftOM  ABftOAt) 

from  the  annual  report  of  the  U.  S.  spinners,  clerks  and  accountants,  gar- 
Bureau  of  Immigration  for  the  fiscal  deners,  mariners,  miners,  shoemakers, 
> ear  ended  June  30,  1902: — *  tailors;     (c)     unskilled:    which    em- 

Percenttge  braccs  all  cxcludcd  from  the  forego- 

^^^                  ^aT<!?    arao^t  Hiit^tes  ing    classcs,    and    includes    farm    la- 

unikiiied  ^/^pj^j  if/^d*  borcrs,  ordinary  laborers,  personal  and 

c    *u   T*  r                   ^     tf-^^.      .^^11  domestic   servants,   and   those  of    no 

South    Italian    90      $9.95      50.00  ' 

Irish   93      17.80       3.50  stated  occupation,  includmg  manv  wo- 

sSinavian:::::::    if      l^     1:^  men  and  pracUcally  an  children:  The 

Hebrew    69       7.30     21.00  number  of  immigrants  within  the  first 

p"ofte;e-;:::::::  S  S  si~  '^^'' '« *°°  ^'"^"  *°  ^  recognized  in 

Finnish  93  14.95  i.oo  the  present  discussion;  of  the  two  re- 
North    Italian    80      21.70      13.00  ...                .                     ^            ^r 

Greek   87      17.50     27.00  mammg    classes    the    percentage    of 


Photo  by  Goodell,  Boston 


Finnish  Types  From  Finland,  Russian  Empire 


In  compiling  the  statistics  which 
relate  to  occupation  it  has  been  con- 
venient to  divide  the  total  immigra- 
tion into  three  classes:  (a)  profes- 
sional :  including  artists,  teachers,  mu- 
sicians and  actors;  (b)  skilled:  those 
having  skilled  occupations,  such  as 
tradesmen,     seamstresses,     weavers, 

*See article  entitled  "Immigration"  in  December  issue 
of  this  magazine. 


those  engaged  in  skilled  occupations 
is  very  low;  the  proportion  of  un- 
skilled is  given  in  the  table.  It  should 
be  noted  that  the  standing  of  the  Irish 
race  is  lowered  by  the  disproportion- 
ately large  number  of  females  among 
immigrants  of  that  race;  that  the 
showing  of  the  English  is  impaired 
by  reason  of  the  tendency  of  entire 


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INTO   MASSACHUSETTS 


673 


iamilies  of  that  race  to  emigrate ;  and 
that  the  good  record  of  the  Hebrews 
is  due  largely  to  the  fact  that 
more  than  ten  per  cent  of  Jewish 
immigrants  are  tailors.  In  regard  to 
the  financial  column  of  the  table,  it 
should  be  stated  that  statistics  are 
based  upon  the  amount  of  money  ex- 


The  table,  therefore,  is  generally 
reliable  but  not  absolutely  conclusive 
because  (i)  of  the  numerical  dispro- 
portion of  the  sexes,  and  of  children 
and  adults,  among  the  different  races ; 
(2)  of  the  possibilities  of  inaccuracy 
in  the  record  of  the  financial  and  of 
the    intellectual    standing    of    immi- 


Photo  by  Goodell,  Boston 

Awaiting  Further  Inspection— Types  of  Russian  Jews 


hibited  by  immigrants  in  response  to 
the  demand  of  the  immigration  offi- 
cers, and  may  not  invariably  repre- 
sent the  total  amount  possessed.  No 
actual  test  is  required  of  the  ability  of 
immigrants  to  read  or  write ;  their  re- 
plies to  the  interrogation  of  the  immi- 
gration officers  are  ordinarily  recorded 
as  given.* 


grants;  and  (3)  of  the  fact  that  im- 
migrants do  not  necessarily  follow  the 


*In  Labor  Bulletin  No.  27,  for  Aueust,  1903,  edited  by 
the  Bureau  of  Statistics  of  Labor  of  Massachusetts,  occurs 
an  interesting  chapter  on  Aliens  in  Industry.  Referring  to 
the  State  census  of  1895,  it  shows  that  of  the  16,334  French 
Canadians,  nsales.  over  twenty-one  years  of  age,  resident  at 
that  time  in  this  State  but  not  citizens  of  the  United  States, 
44.53  per  cent  were  illiterate.  The  percentages  for  the 
same  class  among  other  races  were  as  follows : 


Italian  45.43 
Irish  25.49 
Polish  44.55 
Swedish  5.79 


Russian  (principally  Hebrew)  24.47 
English  3.92 

Portuguese  67.64 


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occupation    which  they  pursued    in 
their  own  country. 

A  large  accession  of  unskilled  labor- 
ers to  a  community  inevitably  tends  to 
an  increase  of  competition  in  the  labor 
/  market  and  a  reduction  of  wages. 
When  handicapped  by  an  inability  to 
speak  the  prevailing  language,  the  de- 
pendence of  such  laborers  is  augment- 
ed, and  their  industrial  fate  is  more 
largely  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  cap- 
italist employer.  A  propulsive  upward 
movement  is  g^ven  to  the  labor  mar- 
ket. Those  occupying  the  inundated 
field  are  forced  in  large  numbers  into 
the  next  higher  grade  of  employment ; 
a  recurrence  of  the  competition  of  the 
lower  ranks  ensues,  and  a  fresh  up-' 
ward  impulse  is  given.  The  evil  effects 
of  the  competition  of  immigrant  la- 
bor, so  far  as  the  industrial  life,  of 
Massachusetts  is  concerned,  have  thus 
far  been  discovered  chiefly  in  the  com- 
paratively unskilled  occupations;  the 
strife  has  been  keenly  felt  at  times  in 
the  ranks  of  employees  of  textile,  boot 
and  shoe,  rubber  and  leather  indus- 
tries; and  the  higher  grades  of  work- 
ers in  these  and  some  other  occupa- 
tions have  not  infrequently  suffered. 
The  insidious  effects  of  foreign  com- 
petition often  appear  in  unexpected 
places.  While  skilled  artisans  from 
the  British  Isles  have  uniformly  stood 
for  the  highest  wages,  and  have  often 
proved  to  be  the  mainstay  of  the  trade 
unions,  the  competition  of  British 
Americans,  particularly  in  the  build- 
ing trades,  has  been  seriously  felt 
Frequentiy  their  sojourn  here  is  only 
temporary,  and  it  is  to  their  advantage 
to  work  for  what  they  can  get.  Dr. 
Frederick  A.  Bushee,  speaking  of  Oc- 
cupations in  his  study  of  "Ethnic  Fac- 


tors in  the  Population  of  Boston,"* 
states  that  one  result  of  this  competi- 
tion is  seen  in  the  inability  of  the  car- 
penters' union  in  Boston  to  raise  its 
standard  wage  to  the  level  which  ex- 
ists outside  the  sphere  of  the  British- 
American  invasion;  and  he  questions 
seriously  the  industrial  value  of  much 
of  that  immigration  from  Canada 
which  is  of  a  temporary  character. 

To  save  money — to  realize  "la  for- 
tuna'* — is  the  controlling  impulse 
which  brings  immense  numbers  of 
Italians  to  this  country.  In  achiev- 
ing this  end  they  do  not  hesitate  at 
any  sort  of  compromise  with  the  con- 
ditions of  existence.  Men  are  often 
content  to  live  eight  or  ten  in  a  single 
room,  paying  ten  to  thirty  cents 
weekly  per  head ;  and  by  co-operation 
the  total  expense  of  subsistence  per 
man  may  not  exceed  one  dollar 
weekly.  Many  return  to  Italy  in  the 
course  of  a  few  years,  but  their  places 
are  taken  by  fresh  arrivals  and  the 
standard  of  living  remains  perma- 
nently reduced.  Unfortunately,  too, 
the  practice  is  not  confined  to  single 
men.  A  similar  tendency  is  often 
noted  among  Italian  families  who  con- 
trive to  subsist  in  a  "home"  of  two 
rooms  when  the  means  are  at  hand 
to  afford  a  civilized  habitation.  Italian 
women  are  largdy  displacing  other 
laborers  in  the  market  gardens  near 
Boston,  to  the  deplorable  neglect  of 
home  life  and  of  the  training  of  chil- 
dren, and  the  establishment  of  a  low 
standard  of  wages  in  the  occupation 
which  they  follow. 

The  Jews,  also,  are  guilty  of  the 
evil  of  over-crowding,  and  their  hab- 
its are  quite  incompatible  with  Amer- 

*  Pub(lications  of  the  American  Economic  Association, 
Third  Series,  Vol.  IV,  No.  a.  May,  1903. 


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676 


IMMIGRATION    FROM   ABROAD 


ican  standards  of  life.  The  persist- 
ence of  unsanitary  conditions  for 
which  they  are  responsible  forms  a 
permanent  menace  to  the  health  of 
the  community.  One  of  the  most  no- 
torious abuses  tending  directly  to  a 
vital  reduction  in  the  standard  of 
wages  and  of  existence  was  the 
sweating  system  introduced  by  the 
Jews.  Fortunately  for  Massachu- 
setts, however,  a  fairly  vigorous  public 
sentiment  crystallized  in  legislation 
which  resulted  in  the  abolition  of  the 
more  flagrant  evils;  nevertheless, 
these  evils  have  persisted  in  modified 
form  in  the  tailoring  shops  which  are 
often  over-crowded  and  frequently 
conducted  with  little  regard  for  proper 
sanitary  and  other  conditions,  in 
which  wages  remain  dangerously  low 
and  the  life  of  the  workers  corre- 
spondingly degraded. 

The  cumulative  effects  of  the  over- 
crowding and  unsanitary  conditions 
inseparable  from  slum  life  are  of  such 
a  vital  nature  as  to  demand  special 
attention.  Dr.  Bushee  finds  that  in 
the  slum  population  of  Boston  the 
Jews  have  a  much  higher  death  rate 
among  the  second  than  among  the 
first  generation;  that  the  second  gen- 
eration of  the  Irish  shows  a  decided 
increase  in  crime;  and  that  with  the 
Italians  there  are  both  a  greatly  in- 
creased infant  mortality  and  a  ten- 
dency toward  the  development  of  a 
permanent  degenerate  class. 

Perhaps  the  most  serious  tangible 
menace  to  the  general  welfare  of  the 
community  from  the  accession  of 
large  numbers  of  immigrants  is  in- 
volved in  this  tendency  to  lower  the 
"American  standard  of  living  and  of 
life.''  The  gradual  decline  of  the 
standards  of  employment  and  of  wages 


in  the  textile  industries  of  the  State 
has  occasioned  much  adverse  comment 
from  time  to  time  concerning  the 
classes  of  employees  who  have  made 
the  lowered  conditions  possible.  In  the 
central  and  western  parts  of  Massa- 
chusetts the  Poles  have  largely 
usurped  the  places  of  other  workers. 
In  return,  however,  they  have  failed 
to  add  to  the  community  the  benefits 
accruing  from  the  omtact  of  some 
other  races ;  they  have  been  among  the 
least  amenable  to  the  usages  of  civili- 
zation; and  thus  far  have  given  only 
slight  indications  of  a  desire  to  partici- 
pate intelligently  in  the  responsible 
duties  of  American  citizenship.  The 
Portuguese  and  Greeks  have  entered 
largely  into  the  industrial  life  of  the 
manu&cturing  cities  of  the  eastern 
part  of  the  State.  In  common  with 
other  races  from  the  East  and  the 
South  of  Europe  they  came  in  re- 
sponse to  a  demand  for  cheap  labor, 
and  apparently  have  been  able  to  sub- 
sist more  economically  than  the 
French  Canadians  who  in  turn  dis- 
placed the  Irish  in  the  mills.  The 
wages  of  heads  of  families  often  do 
not  exceed  $6  or  $7  per  week,  so  that 
the  auxiliary  earning  power  of  the 
women  and  children  is  almost  invari- 
ably added  as  early  as  possible. 

Of  all  immigrant  races  the  Irish 
have  easily  held  the  supremacy  in  the 
political  life  of  the  Ccwnmonwealth. 
Almost  universally  they  have  been  iht 
most  eager  to  become  citizens  and 
have  furnished  the  largest  percentage 
of  voters.  Their  instinct  for  organ- 
ization, their  genius  for  leadership, 
and  their  enthusiastic  interest  in  pub- 
lic affairs  might  well  be  calculated  to 
accomplish  wonders  for  the  upbuild- 
ing of  the  natictfi.    But,  unfortunately, 


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INTO   MASSACHUSETTS 


677 


this  species  of  patriotism,  this  zeal  to 
exercise  all  the  prerogatives  of  citizen- 
ship has  not  always  been  directed  into 
proper  channels.  The  public  records 
of  Massachusetts,  and  in  particular  of 
the  city  of  Boston,  clearly  show  the 
capabilities  of  the  Irish  race  in  the 
political  arena.  But  no  more  clear  or 
convincing  disclosure  of  the  unfortu- 
nate political  methods  in  vogue  under 
the  leadership  of  bosses  of  the  Irish 
race  has  recently  been  made  than  that 
set  forth  in  an  illuminating  chapter  of 
the  book  "Americans  in  Process."* 
If  the  influence  wielded  by  these  lead- 
ers were  confined  in  its  effects  to  their 
own  people,  the  prospect  for  its  grad- 
ual elimination  would  be  equal  to  the 
known  capacity  of  the  Irish  race  to 
evolve ;  but  as  the  writer  of  the  chapter 
referred  to  truly  says,  "the  leaders  of 
the  immigrants"  are  drilled  "in  ways 
that  are  subversive  of  the  American 
party  system,  not  to  speak  of  every 
holy  tradition  of  our  free  republic." 

The  usual  deduction  drawn  from  a 
consideration  of  the  comparative  pov- 
erty and  illiteracy  of  various  races 
of  immigrants  relates  to  the  .effect 
produced  upon  American  institutions 
and  the  standard  of  American  life. 
Attention  has  already  been  called  to 
the  results  of  industrial  competition 
of  men,  women  and  children,  helpless, 
through  poverty  and  ignorance,  to  re- 
sist the  most  debasing  conditions  of 
employment.  The  political  debauch- 
ery which  arises  from  the  manipula- 
tion of  an  ignorant  and  venal  suffrage 
by  unscrupulous  political  bosses  is 
sufficiently  well  known.  But  the  most 
direful  result  of  unrestricted  immi- 
gration, in  the  opinion  of  some  stu- 

^Americans  in  Process:  A  Settlement  Study,  b^  Resi- 
dents and  Associates  of  the  South  End  House,  edited  by 
Robert  A.  Woods.   Houghton,  MiiBin  &  Co.,  190a. 


dents,  has  been  the  displacement  of  the 
native  stock  by  foreign.  Not  only 
has  this  taken  place  in  New  England : 
the  effects  are  as  wide  as  the  country. 
Ajid  in  Massachusetts  the  "Yankee" 
stock  to-day  numbers  only  between 
thirty-five  and  forty  per  cent  of  the 
whole,  while  the  proportion  is  steadily 
decreasing. 

Perhaps  no  economic  writer  of 
weight  ever  gave  closer  study  to  this 
subject  than  did  General  Frailcis  A. 
Walker,  President  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Institute  of  Technology. 
In  his  "Discussions  in  Economics 
and  Statistics,"  Volume  II,  occurs 
a  chapter  of  unusual  interest  en- 
titled "Immigration  and  Degrada- 
tion." This  chapter  refutes  pretty  con- 
clusively the  assertion  that  the  decline 
in  numbers  of  the  native  stock  has 
been  due  to  physical  degeneration. 
With  equal  clearness  the  true  cause  is 
shown  to  be  the  sensitiveness  to  eco- 
nomic conditions  of  what  may  be 
termed  "the  principle  of  population" ; 
in  other  words,  the  reasons  for  the  de- 
cline have  been  social  and  economic 
instead  of  physiological  or  patholog- 
ical. 

Immigration  into  the  United  States 
practically  ceased  during  the  last 
quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century 
and  the  tide  did  not  set  in  that 
direction  until  about  1830.  Official 
statistics  of  immigration  were  not 
recorded  prior  to  1820;  and  dur- 
ing the  following  decade  the  num- 
ber of  foreign  arrivals  was  only 
151,000.  The  increase  in  the  popula- 
tion of  the  country  during  the  period 
1790  to  1830,  from  four  to  thirteen 
millions,  was  227  per  cent,  a  rate 
"never  known  before  or  since  among 
any  considerable  population,  over  any 

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IMMIGRATION   FROM  ABROAD 


extensive  r^wi."  General  Walker 
further  states  that  the  year  1830 
marked  the  turning  point  in  the  steady 
growth  of  native  population,  and  coin- 
cidently  the  upward  shoot  of  immigra- 
tion. In  the  decade  ended  1850  about 
1,700,000  immigrants  arrived.  But 
the  accompanying  statistics  of  the 
growth  of  population  display  the  re- 
markable phenomenon  of  a  decrease  in 
numbers  of  the  native  stock  in  direct 
ratio  with  the  increase  in  immigra- 
tion; in  other  words,  the  rate  of  in- 
crease in  the  population  as  a  whole 
during  the  period  1830-1850  remained 
substantially  identical  with  what  it  had 
been  before  the  tide  of  immigration 
set  in.  The  climax  of  this  movement 
appeared  to  have  been  reached  in  the 
decade  1880-1890,  when,  with  the  ad- 
dition of  five  and  a  fourth  millions  of 
foreign  arrivals— doubly  in  excess  of 
all  previous  records — ^the  population, 
including  this  reinforcement,  increased 
at  a  slower  rate  than  in  any  other 
period  of  the  country's  history,  except- 
ing possibly  the  decade  which  included 
the  tremendous  losses  caused  by  the 
Civil  War. 

Two  facts  in  explanation  should  be 
noted.  It  was  throughout  the  north- 
eastern and  the  northern  middle  states 
that  the  foreign  arrivals  poured  in 
such  numbers;  in  other  words,  they 
went  to  that  portion  of  the  country 
where  the  social  standards  and  the 
standard  of  intelligence  and  refinement 
had  been  highly  developed.  The  sec- 
ond fact,  naturally  inferred  as  a  corol- 
lary of  the  first,  is  that  here  the  decline 
in  the  rate  of  increase  in  population 
first  showed  itself  conspicuously. 
The  migration  of  natives  of  these 
States  to  other  States  is  a  factor  en- 
tirely inadequate  to  account  for  the 


decrease  in  population.  Whatever 
explanation  may  be  put  forward  which 
ignores  the  personal  equation,  or 
which  precludes  from  consideration 
the  voluntary  element  in  the  matter 
of  propagation  is  vitally  deficient 

It  was  not  the  fault  of  the  foreigner 
that  he  brought  a  vastly  lower  standard 
of  living  and  a  practical  inability  tx) 
appreciate  the  advantages  of  the  more 
refined  life  that  he  found  here.  Al- 
though prior  to  his  advent  all  the  labor 
needed  for  the  upbuilding  of  the  na- 
tion had  been  done  by  natives,  the 
latter  flinched  at  the  competition  pre- 
sented by  a  class  of  people  unable  to 
do  anything  but  the  lowest  and  most 
degrading  kinds  of  work.  They 
shrank  alike  from  social  contact  and 
from  the  economic  competition  thus 
presented.  They  were  unwilling  to 
bring  forth  sons  and  daughters  to 
compete  in  the  labor  market  with  those 
whom  they  deemed  inferior  in  quality 
and  condition. 

To  a  large  extent  the  incoming  for- 
eigner forced  the  American  into  the 
higher  grades  of  labor.  Gradually 
among  gainful  pursuits  the  American 
has  come  to  occupy  chiefly  the  avenues 
of  mercantile  life;  and,  according  to 
Dr.  Bushee,  it  is  the  keenness  of  com- 
petition in  mercantile  pursuits  which 
largely  accounts  for  the  apparent  fail- 
ure of  Americans  of  the  present 
generation  to  keep  up  their  numbers 
by  propagation.  Certainly  a  sufficient 
explanation  of  this  fact,  in  relation  to 
the  urban  native  population,  may  be 
found  by  reference  to  the  excessive 
competition  presented  by  immigrants, 
or  their  immediate  descendants,  in  the 
large  cities.  The  difficulty  of  main- 
taining the  American  standard  of  life 
under  such  conditions^  and  the  fear 


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INTO   MASSACHUSETTS 


679 


of  the  native  that  he  may  fall  into  the 
social  class  represented  by  the  for- 
eigner, serve  alike  as  a  check  upon 
large  families  or  even  as  a  barrier  to 
marriage  itself. 

It  is  estimated  that  if  the  rate  of 
increase  in  the  native  population  of 
New  England,  during  the  period  1800- 
1820,  had  in  general  been  maintained 
during  the  century,  the  population  of 
the  country  in  1900  would  have  been 
over  one  hundred  millions  if  no  immi- 
grants had  arrived.  In  spite  of  the 
tremendous  drain  upon  the  vitality  of 
the  nation  incidental  to  the  hardships 
of  developing  new  territory  while 
maintaining  the  high  birth-rate,  the 
physical  standard  of  the  native  stock 
continued  to  advance ;  in  height,  weight 
and  chest  measurement  the  soldiers  of 
this  stock  in  the  Civil  War  surpassed 
all  others.  It  is  absurd,  in  view  of  the 
growth  in  numbers  from  1790  to  1830, 
the  steady  improvement  in  material 
conditions  of  living  subsequent  to  that 
period,  and  the  additional  impetus  thus 
given  for  the  increase  of  population 
from  domestic  sources,  to  conclude 
that  the  almost  sudden  decline  in  its 
rate  of  increase  was  due  to  physiolog- 
ical causes;  that  the  native  stock  by 
reason  of  physical  degeneration  was 
unable  to  reproduce  itself.  It  is  a 
significant  fact  that  the  effects  of  the 
same  economic  causes  actually  respon- 
sible for  this  phenomenon  are  also  dis- 
cerned among  Americans  of  Irish  (as 
well  as  of  German)  stock.  A  steady 
decrease  of  the  birth-rate,  noted  in 
recent  years  among  Americans  of 
these  stocks,  suggests  the  terms  which 
our  civilization  appears  to  have  im- 
posed upon  the  htunan  race  as  the 
price  of  its  benefits. 

The  practical  test  to  be  applied  to 


the  general  question  of  immigration, 
however,  does  not  specifically  refer  to 
numbers ;  it  relates  to  the  tendency  of 
individual  races  of  immigrants  to  af- 
fect favorably  or  adversely  the  quality 
of  American  citizenship.  A  chapter 
entitled  "Restriction  of  Immigration" 
in  the  volume  by  General  Walker  al- 
ready referred  to,  pertinently  suggests 
that  "It  is  much  to  be  doubted  whether 
any  material  growth  which  is  to  be 
secured  only  by  the  degradation  of 
our  citizenship  is  a  national  gain,  even 
from  the  most  materialistic  point  of 
view."  While  the  country  is  undoubt- 
edly able  to  assimilate  moderate  ac- 
cessions, well  sifted,  of  those  races 
now  sending  the  bulk  of  immigrants, 
its  ability  to  protect  itself  from  posi- 
tive harm  under  existing  conditions  is 
highly  questionable. 

Yet  much  may  be  done  beyond  the 
present  efforts  exerted  in  this  direc- 
tion. Aside  from  the  obvious  duty  of 
the  community  in  the  interests  of  self- 
preservation  to  maintain  sanitary  con- 
ditions of  existence  as  a  guard  against 
the  creation  and  spread  of  disease,  it 
is  no  less  under  obligations  to  preserve 
an  environment  which  shall  insure  a 
reasonable  measure  of  stimulation  and 
of  opportunity  for  the  higher  evolu- 
tion of  its  individual  units.  Such  ob- 
ligations, in  reference  to  the  immi- 
grant units,  are  emphasized  by  the 
additional  responsibility  of  assimila- 
tion and  the  need  of  harmonizing  and 
co-ordinating  the  best  elements  of 
native  and  alien. 

The  degraded  surroundings  in 
which  the  foreign  population  of  all 
large  cities  and  towns  is  domiciled 
serve  as  a  steady  deterrent  force  to 
individual  development.  An  appall- 
ing waste  of  energy  and  talent  occurs 


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IMMIGRATION   FROM   ABROAD 


through  the  failure  of  the  community 
to  provide  the  necessary  soil  for  their 
growth.  Political  economists  have 
spoken  in  no  uncertain  voice  concern- 
ing this  matter.  Professor  Marshall, 
in  his  "Principles  of  Economics/' (Vol- 
ume I,  chapter  six)  estimates  that  not 
less  than  a  half  of  the  natural  genius 
of  a  country  is  produced  by  the  work- 
ing classes,  so-called,  and  he  asserts 
that  no  prodigality  or  extravagance 
on  the  part  of  society  is  so  prejudicial 
to  the  increase  of  national  wealth  and 
influence  as  the  wasteful  neglect  of 
talent  permitted  to  occur  among  those 
of  lowly  parentage.  He  suggests  that 
the  "economic  value  of  one  great  in- 
dustrial genius  is  sufficient  to  cover 
the  expenses  of  the  education  of  a 
whole  town."  It  is  certain  that  the 
failure  of  society  to  make  proper  pro- 
vision for  the  education  of  youths  and 
maidens  of  superior  talent  and  pro- 
ductive capacity,  permitted  to  grow  up 
amid  surroundings  which' stifle  both 
energy  and  ambition,  is  directly  re- 
sponsible for  an  irreparable  loss. 

Unfortunately,  again,  the  progress 
of  the  few  who  prove  to  be  superior 
to  their  environment  may  be  further 
impeded  by  the  almost  superstitious 
prejudice  which  is  frequently  dis- 
played toward  young  men  and  women 
of  foreign  extraction.  In  place  of  an 
open  field  and  equitable  treatment,  the 
rising  generation  among  the  immi- 
grant population  is  sometimes'  seri- 
ously handicapped  in  the  social  as  well 
as  in  the  industrial  world  by  the  per- 
sistence of  this  attitude.  In  politics, 
the  failure  of  the  legitimate  leaders 
of  the  various  parties  to  co-operate 
with  the  best  leaders  among  the  voters 
in  foreign  districts  is  often  responsi- 
ble for  the  transfer  of  the  alien  vote, 


so-called,  into  the  hands  of  the  ma- 
chine politicians  and  bosses. 

Even  were  an  attitude  of  fraternity, 
sympathy  and  co-operation  universally 
manifested  toward  the  foreign  ele- 
ments now  imposed  upon  it,  the  ability 
of  the  Nation  properly  to  assimilate 
them  is  questionable.  The  problem 
to-day  is  a  serious  one.  It  has  reached 
the  point  where  not  only  the  quality 
but  the  quantity  of  immigration  has 
become  a  menace.  While  legislation 
in  the  past  has  had  to  do  chiefly  with 
the  sifting  out  of  a  comparatively  in- 
significant number  belonging  to  ob- 
viously undesirable  classes,  no  meas- 
ure calculated  to  lessen  the  quantity 
of  immigration  (excepting  the  Chinese 
Exclusion  law)  has  yet  been  enacted- 

In  a  period  of  prosperity  like  the 
present,  when  capital  is  actively  en- 
gaged in  all  sorts  of  enterprises  de- 
manding a  vast  amount  of  unskilled 
labor,  it  is  difficult  to  make  the  restric- 
tion of  immigration  a  live  issue.  The 
people  as  a  whole  are  absorbed  in  the 
issue  of  personal  aggrandizement; 
toward  questions  of  public  weal  they 
may  be  indifferent  or  optimistic.  If,  by 
reason  of  the  apathy  of  the  public,  Con- 
gress fails  to  pass  within  a  year  or  two 
some  fairly  stringent  law  to  restrict 
the  quantity  of  immigration,  it  re- 
quires no  clairvoyant  powers  to  foresee 
the  irresistible  popular  demand  for 
radical  restriction  at  the  first  signs  of 
a  period  of  depression.  If  to  tlie  nor- 
mal burden  of  unemployment  inciden- 
tal to  such  an  industrial  crisis  be  added 
the  hordes  of  unskilled  foreigners — 
their  helplessness  intensified  by  igno- 
rance of  our  language,  their  depend- 
ence upon  the  community  absolute — 
it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  member- 
ship of  the  Immigration  Restriction 


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A  VANISHED  STAR 


681 


League  will  receive  considerable  ac- 
cessions. 

In  the  meantime  one  may  have  re- 
course for  consolation  to  certain  fun- 
damental principles.  While  the  found- 
ers of  the  Republic  may  not  have 
realized  that  liberty  is  a  condition 
rather  than  end,  we  have  learned  that 
the  end  of  liberty  as  exemplified  in  a 
democracy,  is  opportunity  for  human 
development.  Many  of  us  have  come 
to  believe  that  the  fruitfulness  of  the 
human  spirit  is  determined  by  its  free- 
dom of  movement ;  that  its  value  to  the 
individual  and  to  society  depends 
upon  the  degree  in  which  it  is  eman- 
cipated and  trusted  and  honored. 

What,  then,  of  the  human  element 
as  expressed  in  the  present  tide  of 
immigration?  Obviously  it  can  offer 
no  exception  to  natural  law,  and  it 
is  so  far  clear  that  the  ultimate  effect 
of  our  environment  upon  the  individ- 
ual immigrant  will  be  decided  by  his 
capacity  to  respond  to  its  spirit.    That 


a  considerable  proportion  of  the  pres- 
ent immigration  is  thus  responsive  is 
not  to  be  doubted ;  nor  can  the  desira- 
bility of  such  additions  to  our  popula- 
tion be  rationally  questioned.  But 
what  shall  be  said  of  the  remainder^ 
who  constitute  a  majority  of  the 
whole?  Frankly,  their  responsiveness 
— even  the  possession  of  the  spirit, 
alive,  to  respond — is  questionable.  If 
one  is  bound  to  be  an  optimist,  one 
must  admit  that  to  deal  with  these 
uncertain  elements  is  to  experiment, 
and  that  failure  to  solve  the  problem 
may  jeopardize  the  life  of  the  Repub- 
lic. Neither  may  one  deny  that  the 
entire  nervous  and  physical  energy 
of  the  country  is  needed  to  meet  the 
vital  issues  incidental  to  its  normal  de- 
velopment; nor  that  the  addition  of 
the  problem  involved  in  the  assimila- 
tion of  the  present  tide  of  immigra- 
tion may  produce  an  effect  upon  the 
Nation  aldn  to  that  which  in  the  in- 
dividual is  called  nervous  prostration. 


A  Vanished  Star 

By  Eugene  C.  Dobson 

LAST  night  I  saw,  in  light  elysian, 
A  fair  star  gleam  across  the  sky, 
To  dawn  a  moment  on  my  vision, 
Then  into  darkness  fade  and  die. 


And  now  at  morn,  with  weary  eyes  on 
Yon  white  sail,  lessening  down  the  bay, 

I  see  beyond  my  life  horizon 
Love's  one  star  vanishing  away. 

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A  Voice  in  the  Night 


By  Eleanor  C.  Reed,  author  of  "The  Battle  InvMble" 


W 


"HY  didn't  I  paint  it  all 
over?  Because  I  didn't 
have  enough  paint.  It 
had  stood  here  nigh  on 
to  a  hundred  an'  fifty  year,  and  had 
never  had  the  touch  of.  a  paint  brush 
till  las'  spring,  when  Josiah  Famum 
painted  his  new  bam.  He  had  some 
paint  left,  so  he  brought  it  over  and 
asked  me  if  I  didn't  want  to  paint  the 
hencoop;  he  allowed  there  was  just 
about  enough.  I  cal'lated  that  if  there 
was  enough  for  all  four  sides  o'  that 
hencoop,  there  was  enough  for  the 
front  o'  the  house,  so  I  put 't  on.  But 
laws  a-me,  how  them  ol'  boards  drunk 
the  paint !" 

Three  sides  of  Phoebe  Crane's 
house  were  a  weather-beaten  gray.  Its 
clapboards  were  warped,  its  roof  was 
sunken  in  the  middle,  and  the  whole 
was  beginning  to  lean  threateningly 
towards  the  garden  fence,  where  a 
dejected-looking  gate  swung  unevenly 
on  one  hinge  creaking  complaints  to 
all  who  passed  through.  The  little  gray 
stone  doorstep  was  worn  to  a  con- 
cave; it  was  painfully  suggestive  of 
the  flank  of  a  starved  hound. 

"And  you  know  very  well,  Ma- 
tildy,"  Phoebe  went  on  after  a  pause, 
during  which  she  wiped  an  imaginary 
speck  of  dust  off  the  window  pane, 
"that  with  the  little  I  have  comin'  in 
from  the  hens  and  the  garden,  I  can't 
spend  any  money  for  paint  an'  things 
t'  I  can  get  along  without." 

Phoebe  was  a  fair,  well-preserved 
682 


woman  of  forty-five.  For  twenty  years 
and  more,  she  had  worn  her  smooth 
chestnut  hair  in  a  braided  knot  at  the 
back  of  her  head.  She  disliked  change, 
but  her  niece  was  more  progressive. 

"Why  didn't  Grandpa,  when  he 
built  the  house,  put  the  front  door  in 
the  middle.  Aunt  Phoebe?  It  would 
'a'  looked  a  sight  better.  The  front  of 
a  house  always  makes  me  think  of  a 
face,  and  I  don't  like  the  expression  o' 
this  one.  It  looks  as  if  the  mouth  had 
slid  over  to  one  side,  or  as  if  it  was 
makin'  up  a  face  and  didn't  want  us 
to  come  in.  Now,  when  the  door's  in 
the  middle  with  a  window  on  each 
side,  a  house  has  a  pleased  look,  as 
if  it  wanted  to  say,  *0>me  right  in 
and  take  a  chair.'" 

"Why  don't  you  set  up  straight, 
Matildy,  an'  not  lump  over  so  with 
your  chin  in  your  hands?  Youll  be 
round  shouldered,  sure's  the  world. 
Why,  I  s'pose  it  was  because  Grand- 
mother didn't  want  the  front  door  to 
open  into  her  bedroom.  I'm  afraid 
you  think  too  much  about  looks,  Ma- 
tildy. Your  Aunt  Jenny  Brent  sticks 
to  it  that  you'll  be  a  proud  woman 
when  you  grow  up,  because  the  butter- 
flies use'  to  light  on  you  so  when  you 
was  little.  I  can't  say  as  I  ever  fol- 
lered  the  sign  up,  but  your  Aunt  Jen- 
ny has.    What  did  you  say,  Matildy?" 

"I  asked  you  if  I  might  move  the 
rockin'  chair  over  there  by  the  front 
window;  I'm  so  tired  seein'  every- 
thing always  in  the  same  place." 


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A  VOICE  IN   THE  NIGHT 


683 


Phoebe  moved  a  little,  uneasily,  in 
her  chair,  but  she  kept  her  eyes  on  her 
sewing. 

"Some  day,  when  I  ain't  here, 
Matildy,"  she  quietly  answered,  "you 
may  move  it." 

It  was  Saturday,  and  the  last  of 
May.  Phoebe  had  put  away  her  sew- 
ing— ^having  finished  her  "stent" — 
and  sat  on  a  straight-backed  chair  cut- 
ting newspaper  into  scallops  for  the 
pantry  shelves.  Suddenly  she  looked 
up. 

"Hurry  and  put  away  the  ironed 
clothes,  Matildy,  then  come  and  help 
me  with  these  papers;  I  want  to  get 
these  shelves  done  before  noon  if  I 
can.  Hand  me  that — dear  me,  we're 
goin'  to  have  company  as  sure's  the 
world.  Help  me,  quick,  Matildy,  and 
mebbe  we  can  get  'em  done  b'fore  they 
get  here  if  we  hurry." 

"I  don't  see  anybody.  Where  are 
they.  Aunt  Phoebe?"  questioned  the 
girl,  looking  eagerly  up  and  down  the 
road. 

"I  don't  s'pose  they're  started  yet; 
leastways  I  hope  not." 

"Then  how  do  you  know  they're 
comin'  ?  and  who  is  it  ?" 

"It  ain't  given  us  to  know  who's 
comin',  child,  only  that  they  air  comin'. 
Don't  you  know  the  sign  for  company, 
Matildy?  Tipsy  Tom's  washin'  his 
face.'*  .        I 

"Oh,  fiddle!  Our  cat  washes  his 
face  every  day; — all  respectable  cats 
do,  and  away  down  there  in  the  coun- 
try where  we  live,  we  don't  have  com- 
pany once  a  week." 

"Don't  say,  'fiddle',  Matildy;  it's 
wicked."  (Phoebe  said  weaked.) 
"When  you're  as  old  as  I  be,  you'll 
find — ^there,  there  they  come  now." 

She  sprang  to  her  feet,  thrust  the 


papers  into  the  pantry  and  shut  the 
door.  Then  she  patted  her  smooth 
hair,  hurriedly  tied  on  a  clean  white 
apron  trimmed  with  crocheted  lace, — 
of  her  own  make, — and  with  trem- 
bling fingers  put  on  her  cameo  bosom 
pin. 

Sure  enough,  there  were  footsteps 
on  the  gravel  walk,  and  Matilda's  eyes 
turned  towards  the  open  door. 

On  the  little  gaunt  doorstep,  with 
his  dwarfed  midday  shadow  lying 
before  him  on  the  white  sanded  floor, 
stood  a  tall,  good-looking  man  of  about 
fifty.  He  wore  a  clean  hickory  shirt 
tied  at  the  neck  with  a  wide  red  scarf, 
and  bricky  cowhide  boots.  He  had  a 
frank,  pleasant  face,  clear  gray  eyes, 
and  a  broad  white  forehead,  the  com- 
plexion of  which  seemed  like  a  curious 
high  light  to  the  rest  of  his  sun- 
burned face.  He  carried  a  hammer,  a 
saw,  and  a  handful  of  nails.  The 
gray  cat,  herald  of  his  coming,  walked 
up  to  the  visitor,  circled  around  him, 
purring  and  rubbing  against  his  legs. 

"Good  momin',  Josiah,"  said  Phoebe, 
rising,  and  blushing  like  a  school  girl ; 
"come  right  in  and  take  a  chair.  Jo- 
siah, this  is  my  niece,  Matildy  Cole, 
that's  come  to  live  with  me  a  spell  and 
go  to  school." 

Matilda's  likes  and  dislikes  were 
established  at  first  sight.  She  liked 
Josiah  Farnum  before  he  had  opened 
his  lips  to  speak. 

"I'm  real  glad  you've  come,  Ma- 
tildy," said  he,  a  little  awkwardly. 
"That  is — I  think  it  must  be  lonesome 
here  for  your  aunt  all  alone.  Let  me 
see.  She  was — she  must  'a'  been  six 
or  seven  year  old  when  they  moved 
away,  wa'n't  she,  Phoebe?  How  you 
have  grown,  Matildy." 

Saying  this,  he  laid  his  hammer  and 


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saw  on  the  taUe  beside  a  glass  cov- 
ered basket  of  wax  fruit,  and  seated 
himself  in  the  chair  Phoebe  had  set 
out  for  him.  It  was  one  she  knew 
he  liked. 

Phoebe  moved  uneasily,  cleared  her 
throat,  then  stepped  to  the  table  hesi- 
tatingly, and  laid  the  hammer  and  saw 
under  it. 

Matilda  looked  from  one  to  the 
other,  amused. 

"If  you  ain't  partic'lar,  Josiah,"  said 
Phoebe,  "111  jest  lay  your  saw  under 
the  table  where  't  won't  get  stepped 
on. 

"I  didn't  suppose  it'd  get  stepped 
on  if  I  laid  it  on  the  table,  Phcebe," 
he  returned. 

"Why,  n-o,  no,  of  course  not,  Jo- 
siah,  of  course  not,"  said  she,  blushing 
still  more,  "but — but,  you  see,  it  might 
cut  the  table  cloth,  and  then — it's  a  bad 
sign  to  lay  a  saw  on  a  table.  I  don't 
want  to  scare  you,  Josiah — " 

"Oh,  don't  be  afraid,  Phoebe,  you 
won't  scare  me  a  mite,"  he  inter- 
rupted. 

"But  my  father,  Josiah, — ^you  must 
remember  it, — laid  a  saw  on  the  table 
once,  and  in  just  three  weeks  to  a 
day,  his  best  cow  chdced  to  death  on 
a  turnip." 

Phoebe  gave  a  little  gasp  of  horror 
as  she  completed  her  speech.  Josiah 
smiled  indulgently,  and  jingled  the 
nails  he  held  in  his  hand. 

"Dont  let  it  trouble  ye,  Phoebe,"  he 
admonished.  "I've  got  very  little  faith 
in  signs,  as  you  know ;  besides,  I  don't 
believe  I  raised  a  turnip  this  year  big 
enough  to  choke  a  cat  on." 

"I'm  so  sorry,  Josiah,"  said  she,  re- 
gretfully. 

There  was  an  awkward  pause.  Jo- 
siah coughed. 


"I  thought  I'd  come  over  and  fix 
your  gate  and  the  fence,  to-day, 
Phoebe.    It's  too  wet  to  plow." 

"It's  real  good  in  ye,  Josiah,"  she 
said,  gratefully,  as  they  went  out  to- 
gether. "I  couldn't  expect  it  when — 
when—" 

"When  what,  Phoebe?" 

"When  we  don't  agree." 

"Waal,  waal,  'pon  my  word.  I 
should  like  to  know  who  else  I'd  look 
after  if  not  you,  Phoebe,"  he  replied, 
with  tender  severity.  "All  the  pleas- 
ure I  get  out  o'  life  is  the  little  I  can 
do  for  you." 

"Oh,  don't  talk  so,  Josiah.  You 
know  I  can't  stan'  it." 

Tears  began  to  stream  down  her 
cheeks,  and  one  of  them  fell  upon  the 
back  of  his  brown  hand  as  he  reached 
to  take  a  nail  from  hers.  That  warm 
little  tear  proved  his  imdoing.  It 
caused  him  to  break  his  word  by  leap- 
ing, for  the  hundredth  time,  over  the 
wall  of  a  pretended  friendship  into  the 
flowery  fields  of  love. 

"But  Josiah  I  Josiah !  You  promised 
— prom — " 

"But  you  hadn't  ought  to  ask  me  to 
make  promises  when  you  know  I  can't 
keep  'em,"  he  retorted. 

"But  we  mustn't  fly  in  the  face  o' 
Providence,  indeed,  we  mustn't.  We 
can't  afford  to  lose  our  everlastin* 
souls  for  the  sake  o'  a  little  mit^  o' 
earthly  pleasure,"  she  said,  drawing 
herself  away  with  dignified  firmness. 
"You  know  my  feelin's,  Josiah,  as  well 
as  I  can  tell  ye,  but  I  wouldn't  be  your 
wife, — no,  not  for  all  the  world,  and 
have  that  wamin'  dream  a-hangin' 
over  us.  I  shouldn't  have  a  minute's 
peace,  and  then  when  we  come  to  die, 
— oh,  Josiah,  only  think  on  it.  I  shall 
pray  every  day  that  you — oh,  Josiah, 


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685 


Josiah,  what  have  you  done,  what  have 
you  done !" 

He  had  been  striking  the  nail  he 
had  begun  driving  harder  than  seemed 
necessary;  great  drops  of  blood  were 
oozing  out  from  under  his  thiunb  nail. 
Without  a  word,  he  gathered  up  his 
tools  and  started  towards  the  gate. 

"Oh,  don't  go  home,  Josiah.  Please 
let  me  do  it  up  for  you,"  pleaded 
Phoebe,  as  he  closed  the  gate  between 
them. 

"This  don't  hurt  me  half  so  much  as 
you  do,"  he  said,  in  a  husky  voice. 
"rU  rent  my  farm  and  go  West,  that's 
what  I'll  do." 

Phoebe,  clinging  to  the  rickety  gate 
for  support,  opened  her  lips  to  speak, 
— ^to  call  him  back, — ^but  her  voice 
failed  her. 

"Why, — why,  what's  the  matter. 
Aunt  Phoebe?"  asked  Matilda  at  her 
elbow.  "You're  as  white  as — as  can 
be.    Where  did  he  go  ?   Where  is  he  ?" 

"Why,  —  he  —  he 's  gone  home," 
gasped  the  poor  woman.  "He — he 
pounded  his  thumb,  an'  the  blood — it 
made  me  dizzy.  I — I  guess  I'll  go  lay 
down  a  spell,"  and  with  much  effort, 
she  staggered  into  the  little  bedroom 
and  shut  and  locked  the  door. 

"Supper's  all  ready.  Aunt  Phoebe. 
Do  you  want  to  come  out,"  said  Ma- 
tilda an  hour  later,  "or  shall  I  fetch 
you  something?" 

"I  don't  want  anything,  Matildy. 
Eat  your  supper  and  put  away  the 
things.  Don't  break  anything,  Matil- 
dy; be  real  careful." 

"Aunt  Phoebe,  I'm  going  to  the  vil- 
lage to  get  a  bottle  o'  ink.  Do  you 
want  anything?" 

As  she  stood  with  bent  head,  listen- 
ing,  Matilda  heard  the  bed  creak  a 


little,  then  a  voice  came  through  the 
crack  in  the  door: — 

"No,  I  don't  want  anything,  Matil- 
dy. You'd  better  take  my  umberell — 
I  guess  it's  goin'  to  rain.  Be  real 
careful  with  it,  Matildy." 

Flushed  with  her  long  walk,  Ma- 
tilda climbed  the  wood-colored  stairs 
leading  up  the  outside  of  the  building 
from  the  sidewalk  to  her  aunt  Jenny 
Brent's  three  rooms  over  the  black- 
smith and  repair  shop. 

Mrs.  Brent  sat  with  her  feet  in  the 
oven  and  her  swollen  face  wrapped  in 
a  red  woolen  shirt. 

"I'm  sorry  you've  got  that  mis- 
ery in  your  face  again,  Aunt  Jenny. 
I'm  sorry  to  trouble  you,  but  I  came 
to  see  you  on  business, — that  is,  I'm 
very  anxious  to  ask  you  something 
about  our  folks  on  mother's  side.  It 
ain't  because  I  want  to  find  out  just 
to — find  out"  said  Matilda,  desper- 
ately, "but  it  might  do  some  good  for 
me  to  know." 

"Waal,  what  is  it  you  want  to  know, 
Matildy?  I'll  tell  you  if  it's  right,  but 
I  hope  you  ain't  goin'  to  be  too  inquir- 
in'  about  things — things  you  ain't 
old  enough  to  know,"  cautioned  Mrs. 
Brent. 

"I  want  you  to  tell  me  what  there 
is  between  Aunt  Phoebe  and  Josiah 
Farnum.  I  know  they  used  to  be  en- 
gaged, but  why  didn't  they — ^why 
don't  they  get  married  ?  That's  what 
I  want  to  know." 

"That  I  can't  tell  you,  my  dear. 
That  is,  I  hadn't  ought  to  tell.  Phoebe 
wouldn't  like  it,  you  see, — if  she  found 
it  out." 

"But  I'd  never  tell,  Aunt  Jenny;  I 
hope  to  die." 

"Don't  talk  so,  Matildy;  it's  dret- 
ful  wicked.    Somethin'  might  happen 


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A  VOICE   IN   THE  NIGHT 


to  ye  for  it  before  you  get  home. 
Dear  me  suz, — Phoebe'd  never  forgive 
me. 

"True  and  honest,  Aunt  Jenny,  Td 
never  tell.    Not  as  long  as  I  live." 

Mrs.  Brent  unwound  the  shirt  from 
her  jaws,  and,  with  misgivings,  began. 

Matilda  was  all  attention. 

"The  truth  is,  Matildy, — dear  me 
suz,  I  hope  I  ain't  doin'  no  wrong  to 
poor  Phoebe  in  tellin'.  She's  had 
trouble  enough,  the  dear  knows. 
Waal,  anyway,  she  and  Josiah  was 
all  ready  to  be  married.  Phoebe  was 
twenty-three  comin'  in  the  spring, 
and  Josiah  was  somewhere  about 
twenty-eight  or  thirty.  She  had  all 
her  bed  and  table  linen  made  and 
marked,  'P.  F.,'  for  Phoebe  Far- 
num.  She  was  a  dretful  pretty 
g^rl,  Phoebe  was.  Just  four  days  be- 
fore the  weddin',  she  had  a  wonderful 
wamin'  dream.  A  voice  spoke  to 
her  and  said: — Thoebe  Ann,' — 'twas 
Mother's  voice,  for  no  one  but  Mother 
ever     called     her,     Thoebe     Ann.'" 

"What  did  the  voice  say,  Aunt 
Jenny?" 

Matilda,  with  widening  eyes,  had 
slid  forward  to  the  edge  of  her  chair. 

"It  said:  'Climb  up  the  hill  alone, 
Phoebe  Ann.'  She  took  it  that  she 
wa'n't  never  to  get  married,  so  she 
got  right  up  and  dressed  herself,  and 
walked  the  floor  and  cried  till  momin'. 
Then  she  took  all  her  weddin'  things 
and  locked  'em  up  in  Grandmother's 
big  chist,  and  there  they  be  to  this 
day  at  the  foot  of  Phoebe's  bed. 

"We  all  reasoned  with  her,  and  per- 
suaded her,  an'  finally  Josiah  sent  for 
the  minister,  but  nothin'  done  any 
good,  she's  so  sot,  Phoebe  is.  Father 
was  just  so,  too.  You  know  how  out- 
spoken your  Uncle  Joe  is?    Waal,  he 


told  her  to  her  face,  that  the  'P.  F/ 
in  the  table  linen  must  'a'  meant.  Poor 
Fool,  he  was  that  pervoked  at  her. 
Josiah  felt  terrible.  I  never  pitied 
anybody  so  in  all  my  life.  Hell  never 
get  over  it.  He's  such  a  likely  man, 
Josiah  is !  She'd  'a'  had  a  good  man 
if  it  hadn't  been  for  that  dream, 
Phoebe  would.  Sometimes  I  think 
poor  Mother  made  a  mistake  in  inter- 
ferin'." 

There  was  a  long  silence.  Mrs. 
Brent,  either  to  intimate  that  the  con- 
versation was  ended,  so  far  as  she  was 
concerned,  or  because  of  the  pain  in 
her  face,  wrapped  the  shirt  around  her 
head,  and  Matilda  rose  and  put  on  her 
bonnet  and  cape  to  go  home. 

Not  until  the  following  morning, 
when  the  thin-voiced  church  bell  was 
ringing  for  service,  did  Phoebe  emerge 
from  her  little  box  of  a  bedroom,  look- 
ing pale  and  pinched.  Her  eyes  were 
red  and  swollen,  but  the  firm  mouth 
showed  no  relenting  curves. 

A  long,  lonely  week  followed.  For 
hours  at  a  time  she  sat  by  the  window 
cutting  scraps  of  bright  calico  into 
diamonds  and  squares  for  her  new 
quilt,  but  for  the  first  time  in  her  life 
she  took  no  interest  in  her  work. 

"Ain't  that  a  woman  comin'  down 
the  road,  Matildy?"  questioned 
Phoebe,  as  she  laid  a  pile  of  red  and 
green  squares  on  the  window  beside 
her. 

"Yes,  an'  she's  comin'  here;  she's 
tryin'  to  open  the  gate. 

"Why,  for  massy's  sake !  Who  do 
you  s'pose  't  is,  Matildy?  /  don't 
know  her.  Who  can  it  be?  Smooth 
out  that  tidy,  quick,  Matildy,  you've 
rumpled  it,  and  set  that  stuffed  chair 
straight    agin    the    wall.    Pull    that 


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rocker  jest  a  little  mite  further  this 
way,— there,  that'll  do." 

"Good  morninV'  said  Phoebe,  step- 
ping toward  the  door  to  invite  the 
visitor  in. 

Phoebe's  head  was  high,  her  thin 
nostrils  were  tense, — in  short,  she  had, 
all  unconsciously,  put  on  her  company 
airs. 

"Why,  how  di  do.  Miss  Crane.  I 
thought  I'd  run  in  an'  git  acquainted. 
We're  goin'  to  be  neighbors,  you  see, 
an'  I  like  to  know  all  my  neighbors; 
it's  so  handy  in  case  o'  sickness,  or 
when  company  comes  unexpected. 
Dear  me,  what  a  good  housekeeper 
you  be.  Miss  Crane  I  Did  you  make 
this  carpet  yourself?  How  pretty 
you  striped  it!  Why,  what  a  likely 
cat !  Is  he  a  good  mouser  ?  He  looks 
exactly  like  one  I  had  that  got 
drowned  in  a  bucket  o'  cream,  only 
mine  was  a  kitten.  Is  this  your  girl, 
Miss  Crane?  She  looks  exactly  like 
ye ;  the  same  little  tip  to  the  nose,  and 
\ou're  both  jest  a  leetle  mite  freckled, 
kin'tye?" 

"Where — where  be  you  goin'  to 
live,  Mis'— Mis'— " 

"Mis'  Simpkins  is  my  name,"  inter- 
rupted the  visitor.  "We're  goin'  to 
live  right  over  here  in  Mr.  Farnum's 
house.  We've  rented  his  farm — that 
is,  we're  jest  goin'  to  rent  it  for  five 
year.  I  s'pose  you  know  Mr.  Far- 
num's goin'  ofif  to  Califomy?  We've 
got  to  buy  all  the  stock,  an'  we  can't 
come  to  terms  about  the  brown  colts. 
They've  been  a-haggjin'  over  them 
colts  all  the  mornin'.  He  sets  great 
store  by  them  colts,  Mr.  Famum 
does.  But  I  guess  he'll  have  to  take 
what  my  man'll  give,  for  he's  got  his 
things  all  packed  and  his  ticket 
bought." 


Phoebe  started  and  her  face  paled, 
but  the  woman  did  not  observe  it, 
for,  with  a  mirthless  chuckle  that  set 
to  bobbing  a  bunch  of  discouraged 
looking  forget-me-nots  on  her  dusty 
bonnet,  she  rose  to  go,  offering  as 
an  excuse  for  her  short  visit  that  the 
weather  looked  threatening,  and  they 
had  ten  miles  to  drive  to  reach  home. 

"Don't  forget  to  shut  the  kitchen 
windows,  Matildy;  it's  goin'  to  rain. 
I  sha'n't  want  any  supper.  I've  got 
a  dretful  headache."  And  Phoebe 
went  into  her  bedroom  and  shut  the 
door. 

Matilda  knew  where  the  pain  was 
and  her  own  heart  ached. 

For  more  than  an  hour  she  sat  on 
the  doorstep  with  her  shawl  drawn 
tightly  around  her  shoulders,  watch- 
ing— with  only  her  eyes — the  oncom- 
ing storm.  It  was  ten  o'clock.  Moved 
by  a  sudden  resolution,  she  rose,  drew 
her  shawl  tightly  over  her  head,  and 
although  it  was  beginning  to  rain, 
and  a  flash  of  lightning  almost 
blinded  her,  she  ran  away  into  the 
darkness. 

Josiah  was  alone  in  his  big  bare 
sitting  room,  looking  over  the  articles 
of  agreement  between  himself  and 
Ezra  Simpkins.  In  a  comer  were 
three  large  storage  boxes,  and  two 
trunks  packed  and  marked,  "San 
Francisco." 

By  this  time  the  wind  was  blowing 
a  gale  and  the  rain  dashed  in  furious 
gusts  against  the  windows.  Josiah 
had  thrown  down  an  old  coat  to  keep 
the  water  from  seeping  in  under  the 
door.  He  gathered  up  his  papers  and 
closed  his  desk,  then  he  leaned  for- 
ward and  rested  his  head  on  his  arms. 
There  was  a  convulsion  of  the  broad 
shoulders  as  a  sound  came  from  his 


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lips,  half  sob,  half  sigh,  such  as  might 
have  come  from  the  breast  of  a 
woman.  Then  a  timid  rap  on  the 
door  startled  him. 

"Why,  Matildy  Cole  I  Come  in  out 
o'  the  rain,  quick!  What — ^what  in 
the  world  brought  you  out  at  this 
time  o'  night, — in  such  a  storm  ?  Has 
anything  happened  to — ^is  there  any- 
thing the  matter  with  your  Aunt? 
She  ain't  sick,  is  she?" 

Matilda  stood,  dripping.  With 
both  hands  she  held  the  black  shawl 
tightly  about  her  face.  She  trembled, 
and  as  she  looked  up  into  the  man's 
face,  he  saw  that  her  eyes  were  full 
of  trouble. 

"N — no, — not  very.  She's  only  got 
a  headache." 

"Then  what  in  the  wide  world, 
child—" 
"I  just  wanted  to  ask  you  if — if — " 
Matilda  choked  here.  She  shifted 
her  position  and  cast  anxious  glances 
about  the  room  as  if  looking  for  a 
place  to  get  out.  There  was  none. 
That  great  tall  man — ^he  seemed  to 
her  like  a  giant — stood  between  her 
and  the  door.  During  these  few  mo- 
ments she  was  thinking  of  herself, 
then  suddenly  she  remembered  and 
fear  left  her. 

"What  do  you  want  to  ask  me, 
Matildy?"  questioned  Josiah,  bending 
over  her. 

"I  just  wanted  to  ask  you  if  you 
sold  the  brown  colts  to-day." 

Josiah  was  speechless  with  aston- 
ishment. 

"And  if  you  didn't,"  she  went  on, 
"I  wanted  to  ask  you  not  to  sell  'em 
till  day  after  to-morrow." 

"Why,  little  girl?    Did  you  take  a 
fancy  to  the  colts?" 
Matilda  flashed  him  a  glance.   For 


a  moment  she  thought  he  was  making 
fun  of  her,  but  she  saw  that  he  was 
not. 

"No,"  she  replied,  "I  dcm't  know 
what  they  look  like ;  I  never  saw  'em. 
I — I  can't  tell — I  don't  want  to  ex- 
plain it,  now,  Josi — ^Mr.  Famum,  I 
mean ;  only  don't,  please  don't  sell  *em 
till  day  after  to-morrow,  nor  sign  the 
papers  either." 

Under  pretence  of  stroking  his 
beard,  Josiah  concealed  a  smile. 

"All  right,  Matildy,  I  promise. 
Will  that  do?" 

"Yes,  sir.  Thank  you,  sir."  And 
away  she  flew. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  Josiah 
was  considerably  puzzled.  There 
were  moments  when  he  half  believed 
that  Phoebe  had  had  something  to  do 
with  Matilda's  strange  visit. 

Phoebe,  with  tears  and  moans, 
tossed  on  her  pillow.  The  thought  of 
that  Simpkins  woman  living  in  Jo- 
siah's  house  was  torture.  Although 
she  herself  had  persistently  refused  to 
share  his  home,  she  held  every  foot 
of  it  sacred.  She  trembled  at  her 
impious  hatred  of  the  whole  Simpkins 
family. 

At  every  refusal  of  his  hand,  Jo- 
siah had  threatened  her  with  Cali- 
fornia. He  had  never  gone,  and  she 
had  not  feared  that  his  latest  threat 
meant  more  than  the  others.  Pray- 
ing every  moment  for  strength,  she 
listened  to  the  sound  of  the  wind  in 
the  trees,  and  the  drip,  drip,  of  the 
rain.  She  pleaded  Josiah's  cause 
equally  with  her  own,  arguing  first  on 
one  side  then  on  the  other. 

"How  wicked  I  be  t'  even  think  o' 
seein*  him  again,"  she  moaned, 
wringing  her  fingers.  "I  want  to  go 
right,  but  it  seems  as  if  Josiah  was  all 


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A   VOICE   IN   THE   NIGHT 


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the  time  a-pullin'  on  me  t'other  way. 
O  Lord,  O  Lord!  what  shall  I  do? 
what  shall  I  do?  O  Mother,  O 
Mother  1" 

As  by  revelation,  a  ray  of  light 
penetrated  for  a  few  moments  the 
dusky  clouds  of  superstition.  She 
dashed  away  her  tears  and  sat  up  in 
bed. 

"Mebbe  God  don't  want  me  to  let 
Josiah  go  away  off  to  California  all 
'lone.  What  does  He  let  me  love  him 
all  these  years  for  if — if — ^my  love  for 
Josiah  ain't  none  o'  the  devil's 
makin'.  Mebbe  poor  Mother  made  a 
mistake.  Mebbbe  that  wa'n't  what 
she  meant.  I  wonder  if  it'd  be 
wrong  to  see  Josiah,  just  for  a  few 
minutes,  and  ask  him  what  he  thinks 
about  it.  But,  oh,  I  guess  this  is  a 
temptation  o'  Satan;  I'm  afraid  I 
should  be  sorry  when  I  come  to  die." 

Then  poor  Phoebe  threw  herself 
down  and  sobbed  as  never  before; 
sobbed  herself  to  sleep. 

She  awoke  about  midnight  from  a 
most  unpleasant  dream.  She  was  be- 
ing pursued  by  a  being  that  both  at- 
tracted and  repelled  her,  for  it  seemed 
to  be  formed  of  the  mingled  personal- 
ities of  Josiah  and  Mrs.  Simpkins. 

By  a  touch  of  her  excited  imagina- 
tion, her  own  dress  that  hung  on  the 
wall  at  the  foot  of  her  bed  became 
a  part  of  the  dual  object  of  her 
dream,  and  was  moving  slowly 
toward  her.  For  a  few  moments  she 
was  unable  to  move  hand  or  foot. 
Great  drops  of  sweat  oozed  out  on 
her  forehead.  She  gasped  with  the 
pain  of  a  great  fear;  then  a  faint 
glimmer  of  light  appeared,  hung  for 
a  few  moments  over  her  bed  and 
moved   away.     She  could  hear   dis- 


tinctly the  rustle  of  garments,  and 
a  cold  breath  fanned  her  face.  Then 
a  voice — an  unearthly  voice — said: — 

"Phoebe  Ann,  you  can't  climb  up 
the  hill  alone;  you  can't  climb  up 
alone  r 

A  bright  light  then  shot  through 
the  room,  and  again  she  heard  the 
rustle  of  garments  and  the  sotmd  of 
retreating  footsteps.  She  had  no 
doubt  as  to  the  personality  of  her  vis- 
itor :  no  one  but  her  Mother  had  ever 
called  her  "Phoebe  Ann." 

Phoebe  could  have  screamed  for 
very  joy.  She  wept,  and  laughed 
hysterically,  and  on  her  knees 
poured  out  her  soul  in  thanks, 
giving  until  four  o'clock;  then  she 
dressed  herself,  opened  the  chest  at 
the  foot  of  her  bed  and  took  out  all 
of  her  old-time  wedding  things  and 
spread  them  on  the  bed. 

At  six  o'clock  she  woke  her  niece. 
She  had  to  rap  several  times,  Matilda 
was  so  sound  asleep. 

"Matildy,  I  wish  you'd  get  up  now  I 
— we've  got  such  a  sight  to  do  to-day. 
As  soon  as  you  can  get  dressed,  I 
wish  you'd  go  over  to  Josiah's  an'  tell 
him  I'd  like  to  see  him  just  as 
soon  as  he  can  come  over.  I — I 
don'  know  but  I'm  owin'  him  a  leetle 
mite  for  fixin'  the  fence." 

"All  right,  I  will,"  replied  Matilda, 
in  a  well-feigned  yawn. 

Josiah  had  just  poured  out  a  cup  of 
hot  coffee  and  sat  down  to  his  bach- 
elor breakfast  when  Matilda,  her  hair 
and  arms  flying,  bounded  in  at  the 
door.  She  stood  with  flushed  cheeks 
and  bright  eyes,  panting,  at  his  el- 
bow ;  then  with  a  look  of  sudden  em- 
barrassment, she  said: 

"  'Xcuse  me,  Mr.  Farnimi,  I  for- 


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DAVID   HUMPHREYS 


got  to  knock.  Aunt  Phoebe  wants  to 
see  you, — right  off."  Then  as  she 
glanced  over  the  table,  she  added: 
"Just  as  soon  as  youVe  ett  your 
breakfast." 

"Oh,  the  breakfast  can  wait,"  re- 
turned Josiah,  rising,  and  feeling 
vaguely  that  a  great  light  was  about 
to  break  upon  his  lonely  life,  he  took 
his  hat  from  its  peg  on  the  door,  and 


they  walked  away  down  the  road 
together. 

Suddenly,  Matilda  drc^ped  down 
upon  her  knees  beside  the  road. 

"You  go  right  along,  Josi — Mr. 
Famum,"  she  said,  "don't  wait  for 
me.  I  want  to  pick  some  o*  these 
johnny-jump-ups,  'cause  Aunt  Phoebe 
likes  'em  awful  well.  I'll  be  along 
bime  by." 


David  Humphreys:  His  Services  to 
American  Freedom  and  Industry 


By  Annie  Russell  Marble 


CLUSTERED  upon  the  Con- 
necticut hills,  a  few  miles 
from  New  Haven,  is  the 
town  of  Derby.  Four  miles 
away  are  the  whirring  mills  of  Sey- 
mour, which  for  half  a  century  bore 
the  name  of  Humphreysville.  These 
near-by  places  are  linked  with  the 
memory  of  David  Humphreys,  one  of 
America's  most  cultured  and  enter- 
prising patriots,  whose  life,  more  than 
most  lives,  reveals  varied  interests  met 
with  rare,  concentrated  zeal.  Few 
men  of  his  age  contributed  such  effi- 
cient service  to  American  freedom  in 
such  diverse  ways.  A  brave  soldier  in 
the  ranks,  a  faithful  aide  to  three  gen- 
erals, a  secretary  of  foreign  commis- 
sion, a  representative  of  the  new  na- 
tion at  two  European  courts, — such 
were  his  earlier  active  services,  accom- 
plished with  credit.  After  the  war 
was  over  and  the  subsequent  internal 
anarchy  had  been  subdued,  Hum- 
phreys was  among  the  first  to  recog- 
nize the  necessity  of  stimulating  man- 


ual as  well  as  mental  activity,  in 
establishing  mercantile  as  well  as 
political  surety.  He  had  been  privi- 
leged to  study  foreign  achievement  in 
many  lines;  with  keen,  assimilative 
faculties  he  applied  his  treasured 
hints.  While  he  translated  French 
plays  for  the  recreation  of  the  people, 
he  introduced  merino  sheep  and  the 
secrets  of  manufacturing,  until  to-day 
his  name  ranks  among  the  pioneers  of 
national  industry.  With  broad,  ambi- 
tious schemes,  he  mingled  astute  judg- 
ment and  sympathetic  insight  into  the 
latent  powers  of  the  American  artisan. 
The  record  of  his  life  in  practical  ex- 
periment, even  more  than  in  varied 
writings,  forms  an  alluring  theme  for 
the  biographer,  for  he  evidenced  a 
patriotism  of  stimulative  type. 

In  the  town  of  Derby  is  a  chapter  of 
the  Daughters  of  the  American  Revo- 
lution bearing  the  name  of  Sarah 
Riggs  Himiphreys.  From  its  re- 
searches and  the  recently  published 
history  of  "Seymour,  Past  and  Pres- 


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DAVID    HUMPHREYS 


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ent,"  as  well  as  from  the  archives  of 
New  Haven  and  Hartford  libraries, 
come  many  of  these  incidents.  Mrs. 
Sarah  Riggs  Bowers,  allied  with  two 
sturdy  Colonial  families,  was  left  a 
widow  in  Derby  in  1738.  The  next  year 
she  married  Rev.  Daniel  Humphreys, 
the  clergyman  of  the  town.  Her  state- 
ly, yet  gracious  manner  won  her  the 
usual   address   of   Lady   Humphreys, 


the  mounds,  and  made  legible  the 
quaint,  tender  epitaph  to  these  sleep- 
ing lovers : 

**The   seasons   thus   as  ceaseless  round   a 

jarring  world  they  roll. 
Still   finds   them    happy, — and   consenting 

spring 
Sheds   her  own  rosy    garland    on    their 

heads, 
Till  evening  comes  at  last,  serene  and  mild, 
When  after  the  long  vernal  day  of  life, 


David  Humphreys 


and  her  family,  no  less  than  her  par- 
ish, paid  her  rare  deference.  This 
kindly  pastor  and  his  wife  died  in 
1787,  separated  by  only  five  weeks'  in- 
terval. Their  graves  may  be  found  in 
the  Colonial  Cemetery,  now  opposite 
the  Episcopal  Church,  in  "Uptown 
Derby."  With  reverent  care  the 
daughters  of  a  later  day  of  patriotism 
have   removed   the   debris,   beautified 


Enamoured  more   as   more  remembrance 

swells. 
With  many  a  proof  of  recollected  love, 
Together  down  they  sink  in  social  sleep, 
Together  freed  their  gentle  spirits  fly 
To  scenes  where  love  and  bliss  immortal 

reign." 

Near  the  cemetery  stands  a  large 
two-story  house,  with  deep-sloping 
roof,  surrounded  by  grand  elm  trees. 
This  is  familiarly  known  as  the  "Cap- 


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DAVID  HUMt^MREYS 


tain  Vose  place/'  for  reasons  which 
will  be  patent  in  the  record  of  Hum- 
phreys' later  years.  Here,  according 
to  local  history,  were  bom  five  chil- 
dren to  good  Parson  Humphreys  and 
his  lady.  The  oldest  son,  Daniel,  was 
a  fine  scholar  at  Yale  and  later  served 
as  United  States  attorney  at  Ports- 
mouth. Elijah,  a  younger  son,  was 
noted  for  reckless  bravery  in  the  Rev- 
olution, from  the  testimony  of  com- 
rades that  he  had  three  horses  shot 
beneath  him  as  he  faced  the  enemy. 
The  daughter,  Sarah,  had  a  poetic,  as 
well  as  an  efficient,  nature.  Married 
to  the  Rev.  Samuel  Mills  of  Fairfield, 
Connecticut,  her  home  was  burned  in 
the  attack  by  the  British  in  1779,  as 
described  in  verse  by  her  brother. 
David  Humphreys,  the  youngest  son, 
was  born  July  10,  1752.  Inheriting 
fine  qualities  of  mind  and  heart,  he 
was  a  great  favorite  with  tutors  and 
students  at  Yale,  where  he  was  grad- 
uated in  1771.  In  Kingsley*s  "His- 
tory of  Yale  College,"  Humphreys  is 
credited  with  the  formation  of  a  new 
society,  "Brothers  in  Unity,"  while  he 
was  yet  a  freshman.  The  existmj> 
debating  club,  "Linonia,"  was  exclu- 
sive and  artistocratic,  and  Humphreys, 
possibly  piqued  at  his  own  non-admis- 
sion, assembled  two  seniors,  three 
juniors,  two  sophomores  and  thirteen 
freshmen  and  formed  "the  democratic 
brotherhood  to  fight  for  and  establish 
their  own  respectability."  This  society 
and  the  widespread  popularity  of 
Humphreys  as  a  college  leader,  are  in- 
terwoven cleverly  by  Mr.  Farmer  in  a 
recent  novel,  "Brinton  Eliot;  From 
Yale  to  Yorktown."  In  college  days, 
as  in  later  life,  Humphreys  was  noted 
for  fair  face,  alert  bearing,  gallant 
manners   and    fastidious   dress.     The 


students  well  epitomized  his  traits — 
"He*s  our  fashion-plate,  but  he  has 
plenty  of  brains." 

As  his  collie  life  neared  its  close, 
political  agitations  penetrated  Yale, 
and  discussions  of  rights  and  taxes 
shared — ^perhaps  exceeded — the  time 
devoted  to  logic  and  mathematics  and 
Greek.  After  a  brief  experience  at 
Phillips  Manor,  New  York,  the  allure- 
ments of  soldiery  appealed  to  Hum- 
phreys, and  he  entered  the  army,  first 
as  volunteer  and  then  acting-adjutant 
at  New  York,  in  1776.  The  next 
year,  as  captain  under  Colonel  Meigs 
of  the  Sixth  Regiment,  he  took  part  in 
the  famous  ship-burning  expedition  on 
Ix>ng  Island.  He  was  sent  by  Gen- 
eral Parsons  to  carry  an  account  of 
this  affair  to  Washington's  head- 
quarters,— the  success  f ul  destruction 
of  twelve  schooners  and  their  supplies, 
the  capture  of  ninety  prisoners  and  tlie 
escape  of  the  Americans  with  loss  of 
one  man.  Possibly  the  commander- 
in-chief  was  then  attracted  to  the 
handsome,  eager  young  captain,  foi 
after  Humphreys  had  served  a  brief 
time  on  die  staffs  of  Generals  Putnam 
and  Greene,  he  was  offered  a  position 
as  aide  by  Washington  in  1780.  These 
successive  honors  the  young  versifier 
commemorated  in  typical  fashion: 

"Then  how  I  aided  in  the  following  scenes 
Death-daring     Putnam     and     immortal 

Greene; 
Then  how  great  Washington  my  youth 

approv'd, 
In  rank  preferr'd  and  as  a  parent  lov'd." 

His  boast  was  not  unfair,  for  he  was 
not  alone  military  secretary  to  the 
commander,  but  was  warmly  wel- 
comed in  their  home  by  both  Genera! 
and  Mrs.  Washington.  In  his  official 
post  he  received  the  standards  of  the 


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DAVID    HUMPHREYS 


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British  army  at  the  Yorktown  surren- 
der and  later  presented  them  to  Con- 
gress. In  tribute  to  his  loyal  services 
to  his  chief,  and  especially  in  recogni- 
tion of  his  personal  bravery  at  York- 
town,  he  was  voted  a  sword  by  Con- 
gress and  appointed  colonel, — the  ap- 
pointment to  date  from  June,  1780.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  a  warm,  suscep- 
tible nature  like  his  should  love,  with 
almost  an  ecstatic  devotion,  the  grave, 
wise  general  who  honored  him  with 
fatherly  regard.  In  many — in  truth,  in 
nearly  all — of  his  verses  are  proud  ref- 


to  share  in  the  poignancy  of  your  dis- 
tress for  the  death  of  the  best  of  hus- 
bands." 

The  first  diplomatic  experience 
given  to  Humphreys  was  as  attache 
with  Jefferson  at  Paris,  where  he  re- 
mained until  1786.  One  of  his  ship- 
comrades  was  Kosciusko.  In  a  rhyme 
written  to  his  friend,  Timothy  Dwight, 
on  shipboard,  he  thus  eulogizes  the 
European  hero : 

"Our    Polish    friend,     whose    name    still 
sounds  so  hard. 
To  make  it  rhyme  would  puzzle  any  bard, 


Humphreys  Homestead  at  Derby,  Conn. 


erences  to  his  association  with  Wash- 
ington on  the  march,  in  desolate  win- 
ter camp,  or  at  Mount  Vernon.  With 
characteristic  floridity  he  transformed 
these  lowly  war-stations  into  "the 
shadow  of  the  Imperial  tent.*'  Be- 
neath the  excess  of  form,  however, 
resided  a  deep,  grateful  love  for  his 
hero.  Writing  Mrs.  Washing1j>n  from 
Madrid  in  February,  1800,  he  speaks 
with  restrained  tenderness :  "Too  long 
was  I  an  inmate  of  your  hospitable 
family,  and  too  intimately  connected 
with  the  late  illustrious  head  of  it,  not 


That  youth,  whom  bays  and  laurels  early 
crown'd. 

For  virtues,  science,  arts  and  arms  re- 
nowned." 

The  gallantry  of  manner  and  the 
dilettante  exercise  of  verse  won  Hum- 
phreys much  social  attention  in 
France, — also  somewhat  of  censure 
from  sturdy,  court-despising  Ameri- 
cans. Letters  to  his  mother  reveal  the 
adulation  paid  him  and  his  assurance 
that  "a  poet,  like  a  prophet,  is  not 
without  honor  except  in  his  own  coun- 
try."     On  his  return  from  Paris  he 


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DAVID    HUMPHREYS 


was  invited  to  Mount  Vernon  to  fulfil 
a  plan  mentioned  in  his  letters,  of  writ- 
ing a  history  of  the  Revolution.  To 
aid  him,  Washington  offered  him  a 
private  apartment  and  access  to  all  the 
state  papers  and  oral  memories  that 
were  available.  From  one  point  of 
view  it  would  seem  a  great  loss  that 
such  a  history  could  not  have  been 
written  under  these  rare  auspices. 
One  may,  however,  question  if  Hum- 
phreys' aesthetic  tastes  and  effusive 
style  would  have  produced  a  work  of 
deep  value.  Apparently,  Washington 
did  not  entertain  such  doubts,  for  he 
thus  urges  the  author :  "Your  abilities 
as  a  writer,  your  discrimination  re- 
specting the  principles  which  led  to 
the  decision  by  arms,  your  personal 
knowledge  of  many  facts  as  they  oc- 
curred, in  the  progress  of  the  war, 
your  disposition  to  justice,  candor  and 
impartiality,  and  your  diligence  in  in- 
vestigating truth,  combining,  fit  you 
in  the  vigor  of  life  for  the  task." 

Possibly,  Humphreys  realized  his 
limitations,  for  he  made  no  serious  at- 
tempt at  the  history.  He  said  he  "was 
daunted  by  the  magnitude  of  the  en- 
terprise." He  did  write  here  his  life 
of  General  Putnam,  which  has  been 
ruthlessly  assailed  by  later  scholars, 
especially  such  as  question  Putnam's 
policy,  and  has  been  declared  too  laud- 
atory to  be  authentic.  The  diction  is 
often  effusive,  but  portions  are  vividly 
told,  as  the  encounter  with  the  Pom- 
fret  wolf,  probably  the  first  narrative 
in  book  form  of  this  traditional  adven- 
ture. 

Mount  Vernon  was  a  delightful 
home  to  Humphreys,  and  in  letters  he 
describes  the  daily  life  of  Washing- 
ton, his  careful  supervision  of  his 
eight  hundred  acres  of  wheat  and  his 


seven  hundred  acres  of  corn,  his  per- 
sonal attention  to  the  navigation  of  the 
Potomac  and  other  far-reaching  inter- 
ests.   When  Humphreys  heard  that  his 
poem,  "The  Address  to  the  Armies  of 
the  United   States,"  had  been  trans- 
lated   into    French   and   received    ap- 
plause from  the  king  and  queen,  his 
egotism   waxed   apace,   and   he    has- 
tened   to    Philadelphia    to    have    his 
portrait  painted  by  the  foreign  artists 
for  the  two  famous  groups,  "Presen- 
tation of  the  Standards  to  Congress"' 
and  "Resignation  of  Washington   as 
Commander   of   the  Armies."     Criti- 
cism    must     not     prevent     fairness, 
however,  at  this  tentative  period  of  the 
soldier-poet's  life.     He  had  shown  his 
"sterner  stuff"  in  war  record,  he  was 
yet  to  disclose  practical  patriotism  in 
promoting  industrial  life  for  the  new 
nation.     Returning  to  New  England, 
he  found  visual  evidences  of  the  dis- 
sensions rumors  of  which  had  agitated 
Mount    Vernon.      Shays's    Rebellion 
was    an  imminent    danger,  and    riots 
also    threatened    in    Connecticut    and 
elsewhere.     In  February,  1787,  Hum- 
phreys assumed  charge  of  one  hun- 
dred and  fifty  men  to  guard  the  ar- 
senal at  Springfield  from  the  rioters' 
approach.     He  also  instituted  effective 
measures  to  quell  other  incipient  re- 
volts against  local   regulations.     For 
the   next   two  years,   while  the   new 
government    was   being   formed   and 
strengthened,  Humphreys  was  repre- 
sentative in  the  State  Assembly  and 
lived  at  Hartford,  spending  some  time 
in  literary  work,  first  to  appear  in  the 
New  Haven  Gazette  and  the  Hartford 
C  our  ant.     In  the  former  for  July  13, 
1786,  is  found  a  long  extract  from  his 
most  ambitious   poem,   "The   Happi- 
ness of  America."     This  was  almost  a 


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sequel  to  the  "Address  to  the  Armies," 
already  mentioned,  written  when  he 
was  corralled  with  the  army  at  Peeks- 
kill,  watching  the  slow  movements 
of  the  British  forces  at  New  York  in 
1782.  This  first  poem  is  spirited  and 
full  of  hope  for  the  soldiers,  despite 
gloomy  portents.  Prophecies  of  Wash- 
ington's latent  powers,  dramatic  recital 
of  the  death  of  the  noble  young  Lau- 
rens, and  a  vision  of  future  resources 


urged  loyalty  to  the  infant  nation. 
With  effusive  confidence  the  poet 
sang 
"The  new  world  happier  than  the  old." 
In  the  New  Haven  Gazette  for 
November  16,  1787,  are  two  articles 
by  Humphreys,  commemorative  of  his 
adoring  fealty  to  Washington.  The 
first  was  a  direct,  forceful  vindication 
of  the  General  for  suggested  injustice 
towards  one  Captain  Asgill.     The  sec- 


Gen.  Humphreys  Delivering  the  Flags  Taken  at  Yorktown 


in  Western  lands,  contributed  to  the 
popularity  of  this  verse-oration.  When 
translated  into  French  by  Marquis  de 
Chastelleux,  it  roused  enthusiasm  and 
confidence  in  American  arms  among 
the  French  allies.  "The  Happiness  of 
America,"  written  while  Humphreys 
was  abroad  on  Jefferson's  commission, 
reviewed  the  hard-won  victory,  the 
heroism  of  generals  and  patriot- 
statesmen,  especially  Washington,  and 


ond  is  "An  Ode;  Mount  Vernon,^ 
written  in  August,  1786.  As  it  re- 
flects the  literary  qualities,  good  and 
bad,  as  well  as  the  poet's  permeating 
hero-worship,  it  will  be  interesting  to 
quote  a  few  stanzas : 
"By  broad  Potomack's  azure  tide, 
Where  Vernon's  mount,  in  sylvan  pride, 

Displays  its  beauties  far. 
Great  Washington,  to  peaceful  shades, 
Where  no  unhallow'd  wish  invades, 
Retir'd  from  scenes  of  war. 


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DAVID    HUMPRHEYS 


**Let  others  sing  his  deeds  in  arms, 
A  nation  saved  and  conquest's  charms, 

Posterity  shall  hear. 
*Twas     mine,     return'd     from    Europe's 

courts. 
To  share  his  thoughts,  partake  his  sports, 
And  soothe  his  partial  ear. 

"To  thee,  my  friend,  these  lays  belong; 
Thy  happy  seat  inspires  my  song, 

With  gay,  perennial  blooms, 
With  fruitage  fair,  and  cool  retreats, 
Whose  bowery  wilderness  of  sweets 

The  ambient  air  perfumes. 

**The  storm  is  calm'd,  serene  the  heaven, 
And  mildly  o'er  the  climes  of  ev'n 

Expands  th*  imperial  day: 
O  God,  the  source  of  light  supreme. 
Shed  on  our  dusky  morn  a  gleam, 
To  guide  our  doubtful  way.'  " 

During  these  crucial  years  in  Hart- 
ford, Humphreys  conceived  the  idea 
of  **The  Anarchiad,"  written  with  his 
friends,  Trumbull,  Barlow  and  Dr. 
Lemuel  Hopkins,  to  ridicule  and  so 
counteract  the  tendencies  to  lawless- 
ness and  political  unrest. 

Gathered  at  Hartford  during  these 
years  of  the  closing  century  were  a 
few  men  of  patriot  hearts  and  literary 
tastes  who  were  known  as  "The 
Friendly  Club,"  or  more  often  as  "The 
Hartford  Wits."  Among  the  nine  or 
more  names  of  the  original  members 
there  is  a  major  and  a  minor  list.  Fa- 
miliar are  the  names  of  Humphreys 
and  Trumbull,  Barlow  and  Dwight; 
rarely  recalled  are  their  associates. 
Richard  Alsop,  Dr.  Mason  Cogswell, 
Dr.  Elihu  Smith  and  Dr.  Lemuel  Hop- 
kins. In  addition  to  "The  Anar- 
chiad,"  modelled  after  "The  Rolliad,*' 
of  contemporary  English  fame,  and 
destined  to  exert  much  influence  for 
political  and  financial  integrity,  the 
circle  of  Hartford  satirists  wrote 
many  individual  poems  and  addresses 


of  semi-political  trend.  Some  of  these 
were  collected  later  in  The  Echo,  while 
others  are  found  only  in  rare  issues  of 
Hartford  and  New  Haven  newspa- 
pers. By  their  own  generation, 
Humphreys  and  Trumbull,  Dwight 
and  Barlow  were  regarded  as  unde- 
niable geniuses.  Their  adulation  of 
each  other's  attainments  raises  many  a 
smile  as  we  read  to-day  of 

**  Majestic  Dwight,  sublime  in  epic  strain," 

or  of 

"Virgilian  Barlow's  tuneful  lines." 

Lesser  known  than  the  trio  of  am- 
bitious poets  was  Dr.  Lemuel    Hop- 
kins, a  man  of  unique,  strong  |>erson- 
ality.     A  leader  in  the  medical    pro- 
fession, in  whose  memory  the  Hopkins 
Society  was  founded  in  1826,  with  pe- 
culiar  gait  and   manners,   Dr.    Hop- 
kins was    recalled  with    semi-amuse- 
ment   which     never    obscured     deep 
respect.     An    advocate    of    all     pro- 
gressive methods,  early  proclaiming  in 
favor  of  inoculation,  anaesthetics  and 
the  lancet,  he  was  the  dread  enemy 
of  impostor  or  quack.     An  anecdote 
evidences   this   trait.      Dr.    Cogswell, 
with    Dr.  Hopkins,  was    attending  a 
patient  who  was  fatally  ill.     The  pa- 
tient's sister  besought  Dr.  Hopkins  to 
use  "fever  powders,*'  then  much  ex- 
ploited by  peripatetic  "doctors."    Ask- 
ing  that  the  powders   be  brought  to 
him,  Dr.  Hopkins  announced  that  one 
and   a   half   was   a  maximum    dose, 
calmly  mixed  twelve  powders  in  mo- 
lasses and  swallowed  them,  remarking, 
"Cogswell,   I  am  going  to  Coventry^ 
to-day.     If  I  die  from  this,  you  must 
write  on  my  tombstone : 
"Here   lies    Hopkins,   killed   by   Grimes." 

In  his  combination  of  medical  skill 
and  wit  of  rare  t)rpe,  expressed  in 
satires  and  squibs,  he  might  be  corn- 


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pared  to  Dr.  Holmes  of  our  own  age. 
Among  his  doggerel  verses  is  the  blunt 
epitaph,  "On  a  Patient  Killed  by  a 
Cancer  Quack"  and  "The  Hypocrite's 
Hope,"  a  vivid  portraiture : 

"Good  works  he  careth  nought  about, 
But  faith  alone  will  seek, 
While  Sunday's  pieties  blot  out 
The  knaveries  of  the  week." 

When  occasion  exacted  Hum- 
phreys was  ever  the  fearless,  vig- 
orous patriot.  When  the  stress 
relaxed,  he  indulged  his  love  for 
finery    and     social    eclat.     At    New 


pun,  after  the  first  surprising  intro- 
duction of  this  kind  by  Humphreys, 
"Well,  you  have  taken  me  in  once,  but, 
by  God,  you  shall  never  take  me  in  a 
second  time."  It  was  inevitable  that 
these  court  manners  and  the  marked 
favoritism  of  Washington  should 
bring  envious  comments  upon  Hum- 
phreys. To  a  friend  in  Paris,  Jeffer- 
son wrote  in  February,  1789,  "Colo. 
Humphreys  is  attacked  in  the  papers 
for  his  French  airs,  for  bad  poetry, 
bad  prose,  vanity,  etc.     It  is  said  his 


Joel  Barlow,  Esq. 

York,  whither  he  accompanied  Wash- 
ington, after  his  inauguration,  he  in- 
stituted with  regal  forms  the  Presi- 
dent's levees.  Jefferson,  in  his  Jour- 
nal, describes  these  functions,  so  irk- 
some to  the  President,  with  their 
obeisances,  the  "sopha"  where  the 
General  and  his  lady  sat,  and  the 
grand,  formal  announcement  of  their 
entrance  by  Humphreys.  Tradition 
has  ascribed  to  Washington  an  expres- 
sion of  irreverent  disgust  and  a  mild 


John  Trumbull 

dress  in  so  gay  a  style  gives  general 
disgust  against  him.  I  have  received 
a  letter  from  him.  He  seems  fixed 
with  Gen'l  Washington." 

As  the  special  choice  of  the  Presi- 
dent, Humphreys  was  sent  to  Portugal 
in  1790.  After  diplomatic  service  there 
of  mild  importance,  he  received  pro- 
motion to  Spain  in  1797.  His  life  at 
Madrid  was  happy;  the  gayety  of  the 
court,  the  picturesque  scenery,  the  so- 
ciety of  cosmopolitan  statesmen  an<J 


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DAVID    HUMPHREYS 


TEE  ANARCHIAD: 

^  |teto  (i^nglanlr  ^om. 


•Afll  IdfllEIV   JIEL  iiiiiv.  in^  Til  llf LU 
A.^1  M.  LE1UL  ltril.\S. 


lion  first  pabhsbt)  in  |iek  form. 

BUITIP     WITH     «OTf»    A'D    »PPI\M«r», 


PTBLmiKD    BT    rhoMA*!     U     PEAhE. 


Title  Page 

men  of  letters,  all  gave  him  congenial 
privileges.  In  the  few  exigencies 
which  tested  his  diplomatic  skill  he 
showed  a  firmness  and  depth  which 
amazed  the  courtiers  who  knew  him 
as  a  suave  gallant.  These  paradoxical 
traits  puzzled  his  associates  every- 
where, and  often  led  to  misinterpreta- 
tion. 

Hitherto,  despite  his  susceptible 
heart,  he  had  escaped  serious  infatua- 
tion. In  1797,  at  the  age  of  forty-five, 
he  married  in  Lisbon,  Ann  Frances 
Bulkeley,  daughter  of  an  English 
banker,  whose  personal  charms  were 
augmented  by  the  income  of  3,000 
pounds,  then  rated  a  considerable  for- 
tune. A  letter  from  Washington  ex- 
tended congratulations  in  terms  more 
genial  than  was  his  written  wont, 
urging  Humphreys  to  bring  his  wife 
to  Mount  Vernon  as  soon  as  they 
should  return  to  America.    When  they 


arrived,  the  great  general  and  frieid 
had  passed  beyond. 

As  the  years  progressed,  the  sur- 
face-traits of  Humphreys  became  less 
marked  and  his  earnest  loyalty  more 
in  evidence.  After  his  duties  as  dip- 
lomat were  ended,  despite  the  allure- 
ments of  foreign  luxuries  and  an 
English  wife,  Humphreys  was  deter- 
mined to  make  a  permanent  home  in 
America,  near  his  birth-town.  As  he 
had  shared  the  conflicts  of  his  land 
for  freedom,  so  he  would  foster  her 
mercantile  pursuits  and  her  nascent 
art.  Returning  in  1802,  he  brought  to 
Derby  one  hundred  and  fifty  merino 
sheep  of  best  grade  to  form  a  nucleus 
for  his  experiment.  At  first  the  nov- 
elty of  the  importation  submerged,  in 
the  neighborhood,  any  ideas  of  their 
utility.  With  firm  honesty,  Hum- 
phreys sold  the  sheep  to  farmers  at 
seven  hundred  dollars  each,  less  than 
cost,  and  forbade  unseemly  competi- 
tion. Speculation,  however,  even  in 
that  day,  was  rife  and  the  sheep  of- 
fered too  tempting  chances.  Soon  the 
prices  rose  to  two  thousand,  then  three 
thousand  dollars  each.  One  farmer 
refused  an  offer  of  two  thousand  five 
hundred  dollars,  thinking  he  could  get 
a  larger  sum  the  next  day.  That  night 
a  fox  sealed  the  issue  and  brought  a 
warning  lesson  to  other  wild  specula- 
tors. 

Meanwhile  this  far-seeing  promoter 
of  industry  had  bought  land  at  Nau- 
gatuck  Falls,  four  miles  from  Derby, 
and  here,  in  a  few  years,  he  created 
a  veritable  village  of  his  own.  The 
pioneer  fulling-mill  was  ready  for  op- 
eration in  1806.  This  was  followed 
by  grist-mill,  cotton-mill,  paper-mill 
and  sundry  other  buildings  "with  their 
proper  appendages,"  as  wrote  Presi- 


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dent  Dwight  after  a  visit  to  the  place 
in  1812.  The  old  name  of  the  settle- 
ment, "Chusetown,"  was  changed  to 
Humphreysville  and  was  so  known 
until  1850,  when  the  present  Seymour 
was  adopted.  Recognizing  the  incen- 
tive needed  to  develop  native  work- 
men, as  well  as  to  foster  raw  material, 
Humphreys  had  brought  from  Eng- 
land some  master-artisans,  among 
them  Captain  Thomas  Vose,  John 
Winterbotham,   Thomas   Gilyard  and 


pended  energy  and  income  to  produce 
cloths  of  home-manufacture  which 
should  vie  with  foreign  imports.  His 
success  was  attested  by  the  adoption 
of  his  goods  by  men  of  high  rank, 
including  Madison  and  Jefferson; 
the  former  at  his  inauguration  wore 
a  coat  of  homespun  broadcloth  from 
the  mills  at  Humphreysville.  In  1808, 
Jefferson  wrote  to  a  friend :  "The  best 
fine  cloth  made  in  the  United  States,  I 
am   told,    is   at   the   manufactory   of 


Humphreysville 


other  men  of  inventive  skill.  The 
name  of  the  manufactory  was  at  first 
"T.  Vose  and  Co.,"  later  "The  Hum- 
phreysville  Manufacturing  Co." 

To  create  a  popular  demand  for  his 
products  Humphreys  made  appeal  to 
a  current  sentiment  favoring  anything 
which  had  "democratic  simplicity" 
versus  foreign  ornateness.  The  man 
who  had  been  called  a  fop  became  an 
ardent  advocate  of  homespun  and  ex- 


Colonel  Humphreys  in  your  neighbor- 
hood. Could  I  get  you  to  procure  me 
as  much  of  his  best  as  would  make  me 
a  coat?"  After  receipt  of  the  goods, 
Jefferson  wrote  to  Humphreys, — "It 
came  in  good  time  and  does  honor  to 
your  manufactory,  being  as  good  as 
any  one  would  wish  to  wear  in  any 
country.  Amidst  the  pressure  of  evils 
with  which  the  belligerent  edicts  have 
afflicted  us,  some  permanent  good  will 


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DAVID   HUMPHREYS 


arise;  the  spring  given  to  manufac- 
tures will  have  durable  effects."  This 
broadcloth  sold  for  twelve  dollars  a 
yard  and  won  the  prize  offered  by  the 
Philadelphia  Domestic  Society,  that 
early  friend  to  infant  industry  and 
art. 

David  Humphreys  was  more  than 
an  efficient  merchant;  his  first  im- 
pulses were  those  of  the  patriot;  his 
ultimate  aim  to  advance  American 
civilization.  Moreover,  he  had  latent 
ideas  of  social  reform.  In  his  village 
he  sought  to  produce  the  best  man- 
hood as  well  as  the  best  cloth.  Among 
interesting  relics  is  a  silken  flag,  made 
by  his  wife  and  carried  by  him  when 
directing  the  drills  of  the  factory-boys. 
A  more  pertinent  motto  for  his  life 
could  hardly  be  found  than  that  im- 
printed on  this  flag, — "J^"^  Nova 
Progenies  Pacta  Semper  Servanda." 
His  mills  were  primitive,  for  most  of 
the  weaving  was  done  in  homes,  while 
the  paper-mill  required  at  first  only 
five  operatives,  who,  by  hand,  turned 
out  an  average  of  four  or  five  reams 
daily.  Nevertheless,  there  was  here 
developing  a  broad-minded,  skilled  cir- 
cle of  mechanics.  With  characteristic 
venture  and  philanthropy.  Colonel 
Humphreys  selected  seventy-three 
boys  from  New  York  almshouses  and 
like  refuges,  for  his  younger  work- 
men. Furnishing  a  room  in  the  vil- 
lage boarding-house,  he  brought 
thither  books,  pictures  and  games,  and 
welcomed  his  operatives  here  at  any 
time,  often  coming  himself,  sometimes 
"in  state,"  yet  always  with  genuine 
interest  in  each  individual's  need  and 
possibility.  In  truth,  he  became  a 
pioneer  "social  settler."  He  planned 
evening  and  Sunday  schools  and 
wrote  plays  and  poems  to  be  recited 


and  acted.  Anxious  to  foster  wider 
interest  in  manufacture  and  just  rela- 
tions in  labor,  he  gained,  in  1813,  legis- 
lative enactment  compelling  the  select- 
men to  visit  manufactories  in  their 
districts  and  report  conditions.  After  a 
tour  at  Humphreysville  they  recordeti 
the  superior  status  and  the  invention 
of  "several  kinds  of  machinery  which 
are  considered  as  superior  to  such  as 
have  been  devised  in  Europe  for  the 
same  purpose." 

Meantime  his  mercantile  interests 
did  not  quench  his  love  of  letters. 
Corresponding  with  foreign  as  well 
as  American  authors,  he  wrote  assidu- 
ously. Inflamed  with  the  aspiration  of 
the  day, — perhaps  it  is  that  of  every 
age, — he  was  eager  to  have  one  of  his 
plays  acted  by  a  professional  company. 
With  this  in  mind  he  went  to  Boston 
in  1805,  and  sought  the  manager  and 
actor,  Bernard.  Mr.  Dunlap  describes 
the  scene  when  "the  wary  comedian 
heard  the  poet  read,  drank  his  Ma- 
deira, said  'very  weir  now  and  then, 
but  did  not  bring  out  the  play."  Pos- 
terity may  be  thankful  that  no  more 
florid,  original  dramas  are  preserved 
for  apology.  He  did  translate,  or  as  he 
preferred  to  call  it,  "imitate,"  a  French 
tragi-comedy,  "The  Widow  of  Mala- 
bar," which  was  acted  in  1790  by  Hal- 
lam's  American  Company.  As  his 
friend  Barlow  sought  fame  in  vain  as 
author  of  a  grandiose  epic  and  gained 
memory  by  a  simple  mock-heroic  of 
New  England  "Hasty  Pudding,"  so 
Humphreys  is  recalled,  not  as  the 
aspiring  elegist  or  dramatist,  but  as 
the  author  of  a  homely  panegyric  to 
Industry.  This  was  written  when  he 
was  at  Lisbon  in  1794,  but  was  read  in 
America  a  decade  later,  when  his  pur- 
pose had  revealed  a  practical  influence. 


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In  the  preface  to  this  poem,  he  cites 
the  agency  of  industry  needed  in 
America  to  build  and  maintain  a  navy. 
Especially  was  this  evident  in  the 
crisis  when  he  wrote,  for  "an  irrup- 
tion of  the  Algerines  into  the  Atlantic 
had  dictated  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States  the  necessity  of  fitting 
out  a  Naval  Force  for  the  protection 
of  their  Commerce."  After  apostrophe 
to  Industry  as  "the  nation's  earliest 
friend,"  he  echoes  the  deep  home- 
yearning  which  prompted  this  experi- 
ment,— 

**Ev*n    now    reclined    beneath    benignant 

skies. 
Still  for  my  natal  land  new  longings  rise; 
Remembrance  goads  this  form,  by  seas 

confined. 
While    all    my   country    rushes  on   my 

mind." 
Among  characterizations  of  Hum- 
phreys one  seems  especially  apt, — 
**He  had  a  marvellous  faculty  for 
friendship."  His  life-narrative  and 
writings  are  permeated  with  loyal 
comradeship.  Friendship,  generic  or 
specific,  was  his  vital  theme.  Espe- 
cially did  his  war-associates  retain  his 
life-long  devotion,  while  the  Society 
of  the  Cincinnati  found  in  him  a  fer- 
vid orator.  With  Washington  at 
Newburgh  when  that  tender  farewell 
was  spoken  to  the  army,  Humphreys 
shared  the  fears  of  the  anxious  states- 
men lest  the  ungrateful  attitude  of 
Congress  and  the  country  towards  the 
soldiers  might  end  in  retaliation, 
even  banded  mutiny.  He  welcomed 
the  wise  scheme  of  Washington  and 
his  advisers  to  form  in  1783  this 
society  commemorative  of  the  Roman 
farmer  who  returned,  as  did  the 
Continentals,  from  the  battlefield  to 
the  plough.  Believing  that  thus 
temporary    relief    might    be    secured 


for  the  suffering  veterans  and  their 
families,  there  was  yet  an  ulterior  pur- 
pose,— "To  perpetuate   sentiments  of 
patriotism,  benevolence  and  brotherly 
love  and  the  memory  of  the  hardships 
of  the  war  experienced  in  common." 
After  the  introduction  of  certain  regu- 
lations, restricting  the  membership  to 
the  eldest  sons  and  kindred  measures, 
interpreted  by  the  enemies  of  the  so- 
city  as  monarchical  in  trend,  the  for- 
mation of  the  counter-society  of  Tam- 
many in  1789  caused  a  constant  politi- 
cal opposition  to  the  Cincinnati  until, 
for  the  good  of  the  country,  the  disso- 
lution of  the  branches  seemed  desira- 
ble.    Many  localities,  however,  have 
maintained  their    societies    until    the 
present  time.    At  the  abandonment  of 
the    Society  of    Connecticut,  July  4, 
1804,  Humphreys  delivered  the  "  Val- 
edictory Discourse."      With  explana- 
tions of  the  causes  of  the  dissolution, 
he  recalls  the  heroism    of    the  war- 
heroes  and  pays  deep,  heartfelt  tribute 
to  Washington.  Significant  in  view  of 
repeated   fears  of  expansion  are  his 
remonstrances  against  the  Louisiana 
Cession,   in  his  opinion,  an  opportu- 
nity   of   private    greed.      There     are 
prophetic  warnings  also  against  slav- 
ery, as  a  necessary  part  of  the  culti- 
vation of  this  new  land.    Of  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  he  utters,  in  prose 
and     verse,     potent     messages, — *'an 
abomination  sooner  or  later,  I  fear,  to 
be  expiated  in  blood."    The  peroration 
expresses    the    attitude    of    the    true 
patriot.      With    deep    regret    at    the 
situation,  he  adds, — "We  may  expect 
more  justice  from  posterity  than  from 
the  present  age.     For  myself  I  scorn 
to  live  the  object  of  jealousy,  when  its 
malignity  may  be  avoided  by  dissolv- 
ing this  connection.     This  medal  of 


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the  Society  of  the  Cincinnati,  General 
Washington  caused  to  be  procured  in 
France  and  he  gave  it  to  me  as  a 
present,  with  his  own  hand.  For  the 
giver's  sake,  I  will  keep  it  as  a  precious 
relick;  but  from  this  hour  I  shall 
never  wear  it,  not  even  on  the  proud 
day  consecrated  to  Independence." 

The  later  years  of  his  life  were  re- 
plete with  quiet  enjoyment  of  the 
comrades  of  advancing  age, — ^home, 
friends,  and  books, — while  he  had  an 
additional  pleasure  in  his  rapidly 
thriving  industries.  He  lived  to  act 
as  general  of  a  company  of  war  veter- 
ans for  home  protection  during  the 
War  of  1812,  and  rejoiced  in  the  vic- 
tories of  American  marine  heroes. 
The  country  for  which  he  had  fought 
valiantly  and  poetized  zealously 
seemed  at  last  established  in  her  vital 
framework  and  spirit.  To  the  last  the 
soldier-poet  was  graceful  in  mien  and 
dress.  He  always  wore  a  gay  ribbon 
on  his  cue  and  a  dazzling  buckle  on 
his  shoe,  but  he  chose  homespun 
coats  and  home-made  ruffles.  In  Feb- 
ruary, i8t8,  meagrely  showing  his 
sixty-five  years,  he  was  escorting  a  lady 
from  a  New  Haven  hotel  to  her  car- 
riage when  he  was  taken  ill.  Standing 
with  characteristic  gallantry,  hat  in 
hand,  until  the  carriage  had  departed, 
he  went  into  the  hotel,  fell  upon  a 
sofa  and  died  almost  instantly.  Near 
the  main  entrance  to  the  old  cemetery 
at  New  Haven,  close  to  the  Univer- 
sity buildings,  is  his  simple  granite 
shaft,  with  the  verbose  Latin  epitaph, 
written  by  his  life-long  friend  and  col- 
laborator, John  Trumbull.  This  ar- 
dent friend  left  no  honor  unenumer- 
ated  in  his  elaborate  classicism,  which 
is  here  given  in  translation: 


"DAVID  HUMPHREYS  L.  L.  D. 
Member  of  the  Academy  of  Science  of 
Philadelphia,  Massachusetts  and  Con- 
necticut; of  the  Bath  (Agricultural) 
Society  and  Royal  Society  of  London. 

" Fired  with  the  love  of  Q)untry  and 
Liberty,  he  consecrated  his  youth 
wholly  to  the  service  of  the  Republic 
which  he  defended  by  his  arms,  aided 
by  his  counsels,  adorned  by  his  learn- 
ing, and  preserved  in  harmony  with 
Foreign  nations. 

"In  the  field  he  was  Companion  and 
Aide  of  the  great  Washington,  a 
Colonel  in  the  army  of  his  country, 
and  a  commander  of  the  veteran  vol- 
unteers of  Connecticut. 

'*He  went  as  Ambassador  to  the 
courts  of  Portugal  and  Spain  and  re- 
turning enriched  his  land  with  the 
true  golden  fleece. 

'*He  was  a  distinguished  Historian, 
and  a  Poet;  a  model  Patron  of  Sci- 
ence and  of  the  ornamental  and  useful 
arts.  After  a  full  discharge  of  ever>- 
duty  and  a  life  well  spent,  he  died 
February  21,  1818,  aged  sixty-five 
years." 

Human  nature  often  reveals  unique 
failings  and  persistent  vanities  which 
show  lack  of  self-knowledge.  The 
poet  who  has  won  regard  by  his  deli- 
cate lyrics  is  only  aggrieved  at  the 
unappreciation  of  his  aspiring,  infe- 
rior tragedies.  The  inventor  of  some 
world-advancing  device  cares  not  for 
this  praise  if  he  cannot  win  place  as 
an  artist  by  mediocre  paintings.  A 
famous  physician  ignores  his  skill  and 
seeks  to  gain  popular  favor  for  his 
labored  novels.  Thus  David  Hum- 
phreys, honored  as  a  soldier  and  a 
manufacturer,  considered  all  these  ser- 
vices inferior  to  his  rank  as  man  of 


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letters.  Ardently  he  cultivated  his 
mediocre  talents;  jealously  he  guarded 
any  praise,  however  fulsome,  forget- 
ting his  own  clever  moral  to  the 
"Monkey  Fable,"— 

"Who  cannot  write  yet  handle  pens, 
Are  apt  to  hurt  themselves  and  friends." 

In  the  Harvard  Library  is  a  volume 
of  large  size,  entitled  "The  Miscella- 
neous Works  of  David  Humphreys, 
Late  Minister  Plenipotentiary  from 
the  United  States  of  America  to  the 
Court  of  Madrid,  New  York,  1804." 
On  the  first  page,  in  a  large  ornate 
handwriting :  "Presented  to  the  Libra- 
ry of  the  University  at  Cambridge  by 
the  Author."  Dedicated  to  the  Duke 
de  Rochefoucauld  this  work  gained 
wide  reading  in  France  and  America. 
At  that  time  he  was  ranked  among  the 
few  literary  men  of  America,  and  his 
faults  were  not  so  apparent  as  they 
seem  to  modern  standards.  The  prose 
and  verse  in  this  volume  have,  in  the 
main,  here  received  previous  mention. 
There  are  the  poems  on  the  Armies, 
the  elegies  to  Washington  and  the  ode 
to  Industry.  Two  poems  of  kindred 
theme  are  common  titles  in  the  verse 
of  that  age, — "The  Genius  of  Amer- 
ica" and  "The  Future  Glory  of  Amer- 
ica." In  all  the  writings  the  same 
merits  and  faults  prevail — ^high  ideals 
and  deep  patriotism,  blurred  by  florid, 
wordy  form. 

The  poem  descriptive  of  the  burn- 
ing of  Fairfield,  first  appearing  in  the 
Connecticut  press  in  June,  1786,  is 
less  labored  than  other  verses.  It  was 
"written  on  the  spot,"  says  the  author, 
when,  in  1779,  the  British,  under 
Tryon,  made  their  devastating  attack 
upon  the  Connecticut  coast,  burning 
to  the  ground  Fairfield,  Norwalk  and 


Green  Farms.  Humphreys,  the  sol- 
dier, rather  than  the  dilettante  poet, 
breaks  forth  in  vivid  recital  and  re- 
venge,— 

"In  fiery  eddies  round  the  tottering  walls, 
Emitting  sparks,  the  lighter  fragments  fly, 
With  frightful  crash,  the  burning  mansion 

falls. 
The   work   of  years   in  glowing   embers 

lye. 

**Yes,   Britons,  scorn  the  councils  of  the 

skies. 
Extend  wide  havoc,  spurn    th'    insulted 

foes! 
Th*  insulted  foes  to  ten-fold  vengeance 

rise, 
Resistance      growing     as      the     danger 

grows !" 

Such  virile  stanzas,  however,  born 
of  the  tense  conflict  and  racial  feud, 
are  typical  only  of  one  side  of  the 
character  of  David  Humphreys.  Like 
nearly  all  contestants  of  the  time,  he 
was  deeply  convinced  of  the  justice  of 
the  war.  When  victory  had  been  won 
and  the  stress  of  excited  feeling  had 
subsided,  judgment  succeeded  ran- 
corous anger.  As  he  gained  ac- 
quaintance among  Englishmen  he  gave 
them  respect  and  often  cordial  friend- 
ship, and  recognized  the  unwise,  ob- 
stinate urgence  of  injustice  by  the 
king  and  his  councillors  as  the  cause 
of  the  struggle.  He  found  many  Eng- 
lish who  sympathized,  from  the  first, 
with  America's  position,  and  resistance 
to  demands  which  no  self-respecting 
Anglo-Saxon  would  endure.  The  bit- 
terness of  war  past,  patriotism  meant 
to  him  a  desire  to  gain  surety  and  ad- 
vance for  the  new  nation  in  all  lines 
of  achievement, — political  harmony, 
'industrial  progress  and  culture  of 
mind  and  taste.  To  these  ends  Hum- 
phreys    contributed     zealously.      His 


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foppishness,  his  vanity,  his  ornate  lan- 
guage vanish  before  the  abiding, 
many-sided  loyahy  of  the  soldier,  dip- 
lomat and  industrial  promoter, — 


With  Goldsmith  he  would  aver: 

"Such  is  the  patriot's  boast,  where'er  we 

roam. 
His  first,  best  country  ever  is  at  home." 


Neighborhood  Sketches 


By  Henry  A.  Shute 


IV 


THE    MUSICAL   IMMORTALS 

One  peculiarity  of  our  neighbors 
is  that  they  insist  upon  having  the 
best  of  everything  within  the  limits 
of  their  purses.  They  are  careful 
not  to  overstep  that  limit,  having  in 
mind  Micawber's  advice  to  David 
Copperfield,  "annual  income  twenty 
pounds,  annual  expenditure  nine- 
teen six,  result  happiness.  Annual 
income  twenty  pounds,  annual  ex- 
penditure twenty  pounds  ought  and 
six,  result  misery." 

So  the  result  is  that  they  are 
prosperous,  happy,  and  enjoy  to  the? 
utmost  the  best  of  good  things 
within  their  reach.  It  is  sometimes 
a  question  with  us  if  they  are  too 
progressive  even  in  their  enjoy- 
ments. For  instance,  is  it  necessary 
to  abandon  Mark  Twain,  Burdette 
and  Bill  Nye,  because  we  prefer 
Stockton,  and  do  we  not  lose  on  the 
wfhole  by  turning  a  deaf  ear  to 
Balfe,  Rossini,  Verdi,  Suppe  and 
Sullivan,  because  we  are  determined 
to  cultivate  a  taste  for  Tschaikow- 
ski,  Grieg,  Svendsen  and  McDowell? 
This  was  our  thought  after  having 
attended  an  evening  given  under' 
the  auspices  of  the  *'Etes  vous 
Musicien''    Club,    recently    born     in 


our  neighborhood.  This  club  con- 
sists of  forty  fair  women  and  brave 
men  whose  souls  are  attuned  to  har- 
mony, and  whose  admission  to  the 
club  depends  partly  upon  their  abil- 
ity or  willingness  to  contribute  the 
modest  stipend  necessary  to  the 
accumulation  of  a  fund  to  procure 
the  attendance  of  professionals  and 
distinguished  amateurs,  and  partly 
upon  their  eligibility  either  as  mu- 
sicians or  music  lovers,  or  their  de- 
sirability as  having  houses  conven- 
iently adapted  for  musical  even- 
ings, and  pianos  of  recent  vin- 
tage. 

Several  times  during  the  season 
musical  evenings  were  held  at  the 
homes  of  some  one  of  the  members, 
the  person  throwing  open  his  house 
and  his  piano,  being  assisted  by  the 
other  members  by  contributions  of 
refreshments.  These  evenings  were 
very  enjoyable  and  instructive,  and 
the  only  change  made  in  the  method 
was  by  the  gradual  abolition  of 
the  refreshment  contributions,  the 
hostess  preferring  to  have  entire 
charge  of  the  refreshments,  after 
once  experiencing  the  inevitable  re- 
sult of  the  contributions  in  furnishing 
an  astonishing  variety  of  mediocre 
supplies,  from  Sultana  rolls  to  seed- 
cakes. 


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WE   ARE    WILLING   TO    PROMOTE 
MATTERS 

We  attended  the  preliminary 
meeting  to  arrange  matters.  We 
had  been  in  youth  a  performer  of 
some  considerable  vigor  upon  cer- 
tain wind  instruments  of  brass  and 
wood,  and  so  generous  in  dissemi- 
nating the  fruits  of  our  skill  at 
church  sociables  and  small  local  en- 
tertainments that  the  projectors  of 
these  entertainments  had  had  great 
difficulty  in  escaping  from  our  bene- 
factions, and  had  been  finally  forced 
to  remonstrate  with  us. 

And  so  when  it  was  suggested  at 
this  meeting  that  the  club  should 
procure  the  services  of  some  instru- 
mental performers,  from  a  real  de- 
sire to  do  a  friendly  action,  we  sug- 
gested a  willingness  on  our  part  to 
perform  a  solo  upon  the  tuba.  This 
offer  was  courteously  received,  but 
caused  evident  consternation,  and 
we  were  politely  informed  that  the 
tuba,  while  a  good  vehicle  for  the 
interpretation  of  Sousa  or  Thatcher, 
Primrose  &  West,  quite  failed  to 
catch  the  musical  thought  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  compositions  of 
Saint-Saens,  Bohm  or  Ries. 

This  rebuff,  however,  did  not  di- 
minish our  interest  in  the  club,  and 
we  were  on  hand  in  good  season 
for  the  initial  performance.  Per- 
haps a  little  too  early,  as  our  wife 
rather  coldly  said,  when  our  unex- 
pected arrival  caused  a  most  tre- 
mendous scrabbling  to  follow  our 
ring,  and  we  were  admitted  by  a 
flushed  and  breathless  young  lady 
and  shown  into  the  music  room.  In 
a  few  moments  our  host  and  hostess 
appeared,  and  with  true  courtesy 
took  the  blame  for  being  late  upon 


their  own  shoulders.  One  by  one  the 
guests  appeared  and  with  them  the 
musicians.  We  neglected  to  say 
that  a  violinist  and  violoncellist  had 
been  engaged,  but  to  save  expense 
to  the  club  our  wife  had  been  de- 
pended on  to  furnish  the  piano  de- 
partment of  the  entertainment,  and 
having  received  the  music  by  ex- 
press from  the  violinist,  had  for  sev- 
eral days  occupied  all  her  spare  time 
in  doing  hideous  and  unspeakable 
things  on  her  piano. 

ART   FOR   art's   SAKE 

The  chief  attraction  of  the  even- 
ing was  to  be  a  trio  for  violin,  'cello 
and  piano,  a  classic  of  acknowledged 
excellence  and  full  of  recondite 
ideas.  We  could  not  quite  fathom 
the  intention  and  scope  of  the  au- 
thor as  expressed  in  the  work,  and 
so  cannot  give  anything  further 
than  a  description  of  the  piece  as  it 
appeared  to  us. 

The  three  instruments  started  off 
together  and  ran  side  by  side  with 
amiable  unanimity,  but  soon  the 
violin  left  the  others  and  climbed  to 
an  astonishing  elevation,  leaving  the 
piano  gazing  after  it  in  silent  amaze- 
ment, while  the  'cello  hoarsely 
begged  it  to  descend.  This  in  musical 
parlance  is  called  a  cadenza,  and  the 
violin  descended  very  gracefully  for 
about  half  the  distance,  when  be- 
coming uncertain  of  its  foothold  the 
'cello  and  piano  sprang  to  its  assist- 
ance, and  the  three  descended  with 
dizzy  speed  and  landed  in  a  heap 
with  a  deafening  crash  of  dimin- 
ished sevenths. 

The  violin  was  the  first  to  disen- 
tangle itself  and  wailed  pitifully 
molto  dolorosa  solo,  answered  after 
a   while  by  deep    groans    from    the 


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*cello  and  soft  chords  from  the 
piano.  Presently  they  all  fdt  bet- 
ter and  the  violin  led  them  a  merry 
chase  con  agilita^  while  the  'cello 
skipped  over  the  chromatic  scale 
forte  mezso,  both  trying  to  distance 
the  piano,  which  refuscfd  to  be 
shaken  off,  and  struck  a  steady  pace, 
boom  tink-a-tink-tink,  boom  tink-a- 
tink-tink,  boom  a-tink,  tink,  tink, 
tink,  tink,  tink,  tink,  a  tempo  giusto 
to  the  end  of  the  movement,  when 
the  'cello  gravely  reproved  the  vio- 
lin and  showed  considerable  irrita- 
tion over  the  matter,  got  real  mad, 
in  fact,  molto  furioso.  The  violin  an- 
swered the  'cello  con  delicatesca,  and 
was  joined  by  the  piano  grandioso  et 
con  expressione,  but  this  had  no  ef- 
fect on  the  'cello,  which  still  said  a 
good  many  things  that  had  better 
have  been  left  unsaid. 

Finally  the  violin,  growing  tired 
of  this,  whispered  softly  a  moment 
to  the  piano,  and  both  started  at  a 
terrific  pace,  leaving  the  'cello  to  cut 
frantically  round  a  corner  to  keep 
up  with  the  procession,  and  by  a 
succession  of  desperate  sprints  to 
finally  succeed  in  getting  upon  even 
terms  with  the  other  two,  who  were 
making  the  race  of  their  lives  for 
first  position.  The  violin  tore  over 
the  shrieking  chromatics  until  its 
bow  became  red  hot  and  smoked 
like  a  stuffed  chimney;  the  'cello 
fought  its  way  through  a  maze  of 
musical  underbrush  until  sparks  fell 
in  showers  from  its  G  string,  while 
the  piano  in  its  hasty  flight  shed 
sharps  and  fiats,  cast  aside  aug- 
mented sixths,  minor  thirds,  primes, 
dominant  sevenths,  tonic  sol  fas  and 
all   other  musical    impedimenta    that 


tended  to  retard  its  speed.  On  they 
went,  straining  every  nerve,  until 
just  as  the  excitement  was  getting 
unsupportable,  there  was  a  momen- 
tary pause  at  the  last  bar,  the  violin 
leaped  high  in  air,  the  'cello  crawled 
under  it,  and  the  piano  crashed 
through  it,  scattering  broken  chords 
in  every  direction,  and  all  three 
breasted  the  tape  side  by  side  in  an 
appalling  uproar  of  shrieks,  growls 
and  rumbles. 

How  the  people  clapped,  how 
they  shouted  bravo,  bravissimo,  and 
how  we  also  said  bravo  and  would 
have  said  bravissimo,  but  for  fear  of 
being  hopelessly  entangled  in  the 
syllables.  We  were  delighted  and 
openly  proclaimed  that  fact,  in 
truth,  we  proclaimed  it  several  times, 
in  order  to  be  quite  sure  of  it  our- 
selves and  to  drown  our  unspoken 
regret  over  the  tuba  episode. 

THE  HUMAN  VOICE   THE  NOBLEST 
INSTRUMENT 

When  we  had  recovered  suffi- 
ciently to  glance  at  our  programme 
we  found  that  the  next  piece  was  a 
song  for  soprano,  and  as  we  looked 
up  we  saw  that  the  lady  in  question 
had  already  taken  her  place,  while 
the  music  teacher  was  playing  a 
beautiful  rippling  prelude  calculated 
to  put  the  soprano  at  her  ease  and 
to  adjure  her  not  to  be  in  the  least 
afraid  of  any  one. 

Reassuring  her  confidence  by 
means  of  this  gentle  encourage- 
ment the  soprano  asserted  in  a  clear, 
melodious  warble: 

**AA/    Perche  sono  imbecillata 
condonnaUiy 

There  being  nobody  to  dispute  her, 
the  pianist,  through  the  medium  of 


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her  instrument,  replied  that  she 
didn't  know  really,  but  that  she 
would  back  the  soprano  up  in  any- 
thing reasonable.  The  soprano 
thus  encouraged,  proceeded  to  insist 
vehemently : 

'^Domtttmi  un  organo  di   mono  ed   uno 
sHUtto:' 

To  which  the  pianist  replied  that 
she  thought  so  too,  and  that  the 
matter  ought  to  be  attended  to  at 
once.  Things  got  worse  instead  of 
better,  the  soprano  becoming  al- 
most hysteric,  and  the  pianist  keep- 
ing up  a  running  commentary, 
highly  sympathetic  and  encourag- 
ing to  the  soprano,  who  finally  used 
up  all  her  kinetic  cfnergy  in  a  sus- 
tained whoop  in  C  natural,  while 
the  pianist's  hands  flew  from  one 
end  of  the  keyboard  to  the  other  in 
her  ready  womanly  sympathy  with 
one  in  trouble. 

Again  we  shouted  bravo,  again 
we  ck4>ped  vigorously,  and  again 
we  beamed  round  upon  the  audience 
as  if  to  assure  them  that  we  under- 
stood it  all. 

During  the  refreshments  we  took 
occasion  to  personally  congratulate 
all  the  performers  and  to  assure  the 
host  and  hostess  that  it  was  really 
delightful,  "so  different,  you  know, 
from  the  popular  class  of  entertain- 
ments in  which  true  musical  inter- 
pretation is  so  often  sacrificed  to 
mere  technical  virtuosity." 

Then  wcf  went  homeward,  step- 
ping high,  in  great  good  humor  with 
ourselves,  and  conscious  that  we 
were  beginning  to  appreciate  really 
good  music,  and  to  turn  a  cold 
shoulder  to  mere  insensate  mel- 
ody. 


THE  BEEF  TRUST 

INCUBATION 

IT  was  at  the  Wv.  that  the  con- 
spiracy was  first  hatched.  The 
subject  that  day  had  been  the 
"Boston  Tea  Party,"  and  the 
minds  of  the  members  had  been 
turned  to  thoughts  of  resistance  to  un- 
lawful oppressions  of  all  sorts,  and, 
as  generally  happens  in  the  discus- 
sions of  ladies  who  are  collectively 
responsible  for  the  existence  of  some 
thirty-six  children,  and  the  mainte- 
nance of  a  round  dozen  of  happy 
American  homes,  thoughts  at  once 
turned  to  the  exactions  of  the  gro- 
cers, the  butchers  and  the  dealers  in 
all  sorts  of  supplies,  upon  which  sup- 
plies the  continuance  of  the  mainte- 
nance of  these  homes  and  the  exist- 
ence of  their  children  depended. 

One  particular  grievance  that  was 
enlarged  upon  was  the  unusually 
large  price  the  neighborhood  was  in 
the  habit  of  paying  the  local  provision 
dealers  for  unreasonably  small  and 
appallingly  tough  cuts  of  beef. 

One  lady,  whose  fcunily  was  nu- 
merous and  hearty  to  an  astonishing 
degree,  declared  that  it  was  "posi- 
tively dreadful"  the  sums  of  money 
that  she  had  to  pay  out  of  her  weekly 
allowance  for  meats.  Another,  whose 
early  life  had  been  spent  in  the  West, 
where  prime  cuts  are  supposed  to 
grow  on  bushes,  and  tenderloins  to  be 
raised  without  difiiculty  in  window 
gardens,  declared  that  the  quality  of 
the  meats  provided  in  Exeter  was  so 
exceedingly  poor  that  in  the  three 
years  she  had  been  in  New  England 
she  had  not  succeeded  in  buying  a 
decent  roast. 


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Upon  this,  another  lady,  who 
claimed  a  large  share  of  the  juvenile 
population  of  the  neighborhood,  ex- 
plained that  some  of  the  Bostonians 
bought  on  a  sort  of  co-operative  plan, 
such  goods  as  they  needed  in  large 
quantities,  and  at  such  prices  as  eflEec- 
tually  protected  them  from  the  rapac- 
ity and  extortion  of  the  local  dealers, 
and  she  for  her  part  could  not  see 
why  they  could  not  begin  to  adminis- 
ter their  household  affairs  after  some 
such  fashion,  and  if  successful,  and 
of  course  there  could  be  no  doubt  but 
what  they  would  be  successful,  to 
gradually  increase  their  dealings  so 
as  to  embrace,  not  only  household 
supplies,  but  pianos,  furniture,  cloth- 
ing, sealskin  sacks,  watches,  articles 
of  virtu  and  precious  stones. 

The  scheme  interested  the  ladies 
very  much,  and  the  details  of  a  plan 
were  then  and  there  laid,  a  plan  calcu- 
lated, not  only  to  revolutionize  the 
laws  of  supply  and  demand  in  all 
quarters  of  the  town,  but  materially 
to  increase  the  purchasing  power  of 
every  dollar  that  passed  into  the 
hands  of  the  orginators  and  architects 
of  this  praiseworthy  undertaking. 
Several  meetings  were  held  by  the 
ladies,  the  details  of  which  we  have 
never  been  able  to  get,  but  the  mo- 
mentous results  of  which  we  know, 
and  all  our  neighborhood  have  expe- 
rienced, to  its  full  measure  of  bit- 
temesss. 

UNMASKED 

The  first  idea  we  had  that  anything 
out  of  the  common  had  transpired, 
was  one  day  in  the  early  cold  weather 
when  we  returned  scmiewhat  unex- 
pectedly from  our  office  to  our  home 
to  get  the  office  key,  it  being  one  of 


our  eccentricities  to  leave  our  c^cc 
key  at  the  house  and  to  be  obliged  to 
return  for  it,  thinking  and  sometimes 
saying  dreadful  things.  On  this  par- 
ticular occasion  we  noticed  a  two- 
horse  covered  team  driving  away 
from  the  house,  followed  by  three 
dogs  with  heads  erect  in  the  sniffing 
manner  peculiar  to  dc^s  in  pursuit  of 
a  butcher's  cart. 

On  entering  we  found  the  kitchen 
table  loaded  with  a  prodigious 
amount  of  fresh  beef,  which  we  were 
informed  was  all  tenderloin,  and  frcMn 
one  animal,  and  at  a  greatly  reduced 
price.  Although  the  possibility  of  one 
hundred  pounds  of  tenderloin  from 
one  animal  rather  conflicted  with  our 
ideas  of  the  anatomy  of  "beef  crit- 
ters" gained  from  our  studies  of  com- 
parative anatomy  and  physiology  of 
vertebrates,  and  could  only  be  ex- 
plained on  the  ground  that  the  animal 
in  question  must  have  been  afflicted 
with  elephantiasis  of  the  tenderloin 
district,  we  said  nothing  harsh,  but 
bowed  our  back  beneath  the  load  of 
beef  as  we  obediently  lugged  it  up- 
stairs to  a  cold  closet,  making  several 
trips  for  the  purpose,  while  our  wife 
complacently  explained  to  us  how, 
by  the  expenditure  of  eight  dollars 
and  forty-six  cents,  she  had  saved  at 
least  four  dollars  and  thirty-two  cents 
and  possibly  more. 

She  also  informed  us  that  several 
other  ladies  in  the  neighborhood, 
whose  names,  out  of  respect  to  their 
families,  we  firmly  decline  to  publish, 
were  parties  to  this  nefarious  under- 
taking, and  had  also  taken  stock  in 
the  trust  for  a  large  amount  both  in 
pounds  avoirdupois  and  sterling. 

We  said  nothing  further,  and  on 


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our  return  to  dinner  found  a  juicy 
roast  awaiting  us.  Albeit  a  trifle 
tough,  it  was  very  fair  and  we  felt 
constrained  to  compliment  our  wife 
by  eating  a  huge  amount.  At  supper, 
contrary  to  our  usual  custom  we  had 
bceuf  d  la  mode,  with  beef  croquettes, 
and  we  went  to  bed  with  the  hic- 
coughs and  arose  in  the  morning  with 
our  mouth  tasting  as  if  we  had  eaten 
a  lighted  firecracker. 

(Dur  breakfast  consisted  of  beef- 
steak smothered  in  onions,  and  we 
noticed  during  the  morning  that  the 
usual  visitors  to  our  office  made  ex- 
traordinarily short  visits.  Our  din- 
ner consisted  of 

Soape  de  b<Baf  a  menrellle 

BoBaf  Au  pot  chaud  com  me  dinble ;  ~ 

Croquettes  de  bceuf  ^  _ 

I  Bceuf  Ljonnais.       '4  ^       ~ 

When  we  got  back  to  our  office 
we  were  in  a  state  of  turgidity 
frightful  to  contemplate,  and  did 
nothing  but  stare  vacantly  from  the 
window  and  emit  hollow  groans. 

At  supper  we  had  the  whole  pro- 
cession passed  before  our  fevered 
vision  again,  although  we  were  not 
in  a  condition  to  add  anything  to  our 
already  harvested  crop.  (This  word 
is  used  in  its  ordinary  sense  and  not 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  domestic 
fowl.) 

''balmy  sleep^^ 

That  night  we  dreamed  we  were 
chased  by  a  mad  bull,  with  red,  fiery 
eyes,  and  that  in  trying  to  escape  him 
we  stumbled  over  huge  steaks, 
chops,  roasts,  hides  and  horns,  and 
finally  fell  into  a  river  of  tallow  from 
which  we  awoke  gasping.  It  was 
still  early,  but  we  took  a  walk,  hoping 
that  the  morning  air  would  make  us 
feel  a  little  bettter,  as  we  had  difl&culty 


in  persuading  ourselves  that  we  had 
not  swallowed  a  school  globe. 

We  did  not  go  back  to  breakfast, 
but  during  the  forenoon  quarrelled  bit- 
terly with  the  lawyer  over  a  matter 
that  we  had  amicably  arranged  a  few 
days  before,  called  down  our  clerk 
for  some  fancied  error,  and  sentenced 
several  unfortunates  who  were 
brought  before  us  to  long  terms  in 
the  penitentiary. 

On  our  way  home  we  made  up  our 
mind  to  snub  the  Professor  of  Greek 
and  the  Professor  of  Mathematics  if 
we  should  meet  them.  We  did  meet 
them  and  they  snubbed  us  in  the  most 
galling  fashion. 

Our  dinner, — ^well,  never  mind  our 
dinner,  we  don't  like  to  think  of  it 
even  now ;  suffice  to  say  that  our  wife 
had  exhausted  the  uttermost  re- 
sources of  the  cook  book,  and  beef  of 
all  kinds  appealed  in  vain  to  our  tor- 
tured stomach.  Of  course  we  ate 
something,  but  as  everything  tasted 
just  the  way  parlor  matches  smell  the 
result  was  not  very  encouraging. 

When  that  evening  our  wife  in- 
formed us  that  she  was  making  ready 
to  com  some  of  the  infernal  stuff, — 
pardon  our  heat, — we  decided  that 
something  must  be  done  the  next  day, 
and  we  lay  awake  for  some  time  try- 
ing to  devise  a  way  out  of  the  diffi- 
culty. We  revolved  in  our  mind  the 
possibility  of  sneaking  out  during  the 
night  and  throwing  the  meat  away, 
but  dismissed  that  as  impracticable, 
and  finally  fell  asleep  to  be  chased  in 
our  dreams  by  a  headless  heifer,  and 
to  awake  in  the  morning  with  sadly 
impaired  digestion  and  a  racking 
headache. 
As  we  toc^  our  seat  at  the  break- 


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fast  table  to  our  frugal  repast  of  five 
different  preparations  of  beef,  a  bright 
idea  occurred  to  us.  Alas,  our  bright 
ideas  are  generally  so  ex  post  facto 
as  to  have  little  connection  with  the 
state  of  things  to  which  they  are  sup- 
posed to  relate,  and  if  the  idea  had 
occurred  to  us  earlier,  we  and  the 
Lawyer,  the  Professor,  the  Instructor, 
the  Retired  Business  Man  and  a  num- 
ber of  other  wholly  innocent  people 
might  have  been  spared  much  misery 
and  considerable  expense. 

DIPLOMACY 

It  is  our  custom  to  read  such  por- 
tions of  the  morning  paper  to  our 
family  as  may  be  interesting  or  in- 
structive to  the  different  members 
thereof.  After  reading  several  items 
we  braced  ourselves  and  with  great 
seriousness  improvised  the  following: 

"Tuberculosis  in  K .   Our  K 

correspondent  writes  that  several  cows 
suffering  from  tuberculosis  belonging 

to    the  fine  herd    of ,  were  on 

Monday  condemned  by  a  member  of 
the  State  Board  of  Health  and 
ordered  killed.  Two  cows  belonging 
to  the  herd  were  last  week  sold  to 
local  provision  dealers.  It  is  not 
known  whether  or  not  these  cattle 
were  affected  by  the  disease.  The 
prompt  action  of  the  authorities  is 
most  commendable." 

Our  wife  somewhat  hastily  laid 
aside  her  choice  bit  of  "Bcsuf  cuit  au 
gout  de  la  Reine'*  and  looked  at  us 
aghast.  Our  son,  in  gross  violation 
of  the  proprieties,  promptly  deposited 
the  mouthful  he  was  at  that  time  ne- 
gotiating in  his  plate,  and  ejaculated 
"Gosh!"  in  a  horrified  tone.  Further 
demonstrations  were  checked  by  our 
remarking    that    while    we     thought 


there  was  but  little  chance  of  our  in- 
vestment coming  from  the  infected 
herd,  still  as  it  came  from  the  locality 
in  question,  it  would  perhaps  be  as 
well  to  get  the  remainder  imder 
ground  as  soon  as  possible. 

So  while  we  and  our  son  superin- 
tended the  burial  rites  of  our  portion 
of  the  trust,  our  wife  undertook  a 
hurried  round  of  visits  throughout  the 
neighborhood,  and  before  we  left  for 
our  office  we  saw  the  Professor  vig- 
orously digging  a  hole  in  his  back 
garden,  while  the  Lawyer  with  a  spade 
over  his  shoulder,  whistling  gaily  and 
accompanied  by  his  three  boys  bearing 
a  heavy  bag,  was  making  for  the 
grove  back  of  his  house.  Similar 
services  were  held  in  several  other 
households  belonging  to  the  trust.  We 
have  made  up  our  quarrel  with  the 
Lawyer,  we  greet  the  Professor  and 
the  Instructor  gaily,  and  are  greeted 
in  return  with  urbanity,  and  the  cloud 
of  dyspeptic  misunderstanding  that 
once  hung  low  over  the  neighborhood 
has  been  dissipated  by  the  sun  of 
neighborly  good  feeling. 

It  is  some  time  since  we  have  heard 
anything  about  co-operative  purchas- 
ing. 

VI 
OUR  OFFICE 

It  may  strike  one  as  absurd  to  en- 
deavor to  embody  in  this  series  of 
sketches  any  description  of  our  office, 
but  the  fact  that  it  is  from  the  income 
derived  from  the  maintenance  of  our 
office  and  from  that  alone  that  we  are 
enabled  to  occupy  a  residence  in  the 
Greek  Quarter,  in  a  measure  identifies 
our  office  with  that  favored  locality. 

For  quite  a  number  of  years  we 
have  been   engaged   in  the  practice, 


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more  or  less  active,  of  the  law.  We 
have  never  quite  decided  just  what 
our  position  in  life  or  choice  of  pro- 
fession should  have  been.  On  ma- 
ture reflection  we  are  quite  certain 
that  we  have  made  a  mistake  in  our 
choice,  but  upon  attempting  to  follow 
our  train  of  logical  thought  to  any 
logical  conclusion  we  are  never  quite 
able  to  satisfy  ourselves  just  where 
the  mistake  lies. 

Law,  medicine,  pedagc^y,  we  have 
thought  them  over  again  and  again, 
always  leaving  the  ministry  out  of  the 
question,  for  reasons  obvious  to  our 
acquaintances. 

We  occupy  offices  in  a  large  and 
quite  commodious  building  on  the 
main  business  street  of  our  delight- 
fully progressive  and  heavily  taxed 
town.  Our  little  office  community 
embraces  a  considerable  range  of 
business  activities.  Directly  behind 
our  office  is  the  office  of  Mr.  F.,  the 
lawyer  and  law  maker,  busily  engaged 
in  disentangling  hopelessly  bewil- 
dered litigants  from  business  snarls,  or 
when  not  so  engaged,  devoting  his 
entire  attention  to  the  task  of  type- 
writing his  impromptu  speeches  with 
which  he  intends  to  dazzle  north  coun- 
try legislative  lights  at  the  Great  and 
General  Court. 

Across  the  way  those  two  giant  cor- 
porations which  control  the  ice  and 
water  industries  of  our  municipality 
have  joined  hands,  and  in  the  inter- 
vals of  rest  the  officers  of  these  corpo- 
rations are  wont  to  while  away  the 
dreary  hours  in  playing  **  Sixty 
Three"  or  "Penuckle"  and  in  smoking 
cigars  of  the  most  venomous  type. 

The  last  two  offices  are  occupied  by 
dentists,  both  busy  men,  as  is  amply 


proven  by  daily  and  frightful  smells 
of  burned  rubber  and  ether,  and  fre- 
quent shrieks  and  dreadful  impreca- 
tions wafted  heavenward  by  their  pa- 
tients. 

We  keep  a  clerk.  Our  object  in 
so  doing  is  twofold.  First,  to  deceive 
the  public  as  to  the  magnitude  of  our 
business  affairs;  and  secondly,  to  en- 
tertain the  many  visitors  who  ccMne 
to  our  office  in  search  of  entertain- 
ment solely.  For  a  great  many  callers 
pass  in  and  out  of  our  door,  a  good 
many  of  them  in  search  of  Mr.  F.,  a 
few,  mostly  book  canvassers,  in 
search  of  us,  and  the  remainder  to 
see  our  clerk. 

BUSINESS  CARES 

We  spend  the  most  of  our  time  in 
our  back  office,  listening  to  the  merry 
chatter  of  the  young  people  in  the 
front  office,  the  click  of  Mr.  F.'s  type- 
writer, the  racy  conversation  of  the 
card  players  and  the  groans  of  the 
tortured  in  the  dental  parlors.  A 
knock  at  the  door  and  we  throw  aside 
our  novel  and  pretend  to  be  busily 
writing  as  we  shout  "come  in!" 

Enter  an  honest  yeoman.  "Be  you 
Mr.  F.?"  he  queries. 

"No  sir,  Mr.  F.'s  office  is  next 
door." 

"Good-day,  sir." 

"Good-day,  sir." 

Half  an  hour  later,  another  knock. 
"Come  in  I"  we  shout,  applying  ourself 
as  before. 

Enter  well-dressed  stranger,  evi- 
dently from  the  city. 

"Mr.  F.  in?" 

"No  sir,  Mr.  F.'s  office  is  next 
door." 

"Excuse  me  for  bothering  you." 

"No  bother;  good-day,  sir." 


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Ten  minutes  later,  timid  knock. 
Enter  old  lady.    "Mr.  S.  in?" 

**I  am  Mr.  S.,"  we  assure  her. 

To  our  delight  she  sits  down,  opens 
a  reticule  and  takes  several  fat  docu- 
ments out,  and  after  much  clearing  of 
throat,  informs  us  that  she  wants  us 
to  draw  several  deeds,  a  lease  and 
her  will,  and  is  proceeding  to  state 
the  conditions,  when  a  frightful  up- 
roar from  the  dental  parlors  is  heard, 
— howls,  shrieks,  oaths,  awful  breath- 
ing and  choking. 

Old  lady  starts  up,  puts  her  hand 
to  her  heart  and  looks  as  if  about  to 
jump  out  of  the  window.  We  hastily 
assure  her  that  it  is  not  a  murder  but 
a  simple  dental  operation.  She  sits 
down  reluctantly,  but  another  yell 
from  that  quarter  decides  her,  and 
hastily  inquiring  for  the  Attorney 
Generars  office,  she  gathers  up  her 
documents  and  departs,  evidently  re- 
garding us  with  the  utmost  suspi- 
cion. 

We  are  so  irritated  at  this  that  we 
take  a  few  hasty  turns  around  the 
office  before  we  can  cool  our  temper. 

Another  knock.  Enter  well-to-do 
citizen  acquaintance.  "Hallo,  S.,  I  was 
talking  to  G.  about  recording  condi- 
tional sales  and  we  didn't  agree,  and 
I  thought  I  would  ask  you  about  it. 
Don't  want  it  to  cost  me  anything, 
only  wanted  to  see  if  I  was  right." 

He  was  wrong,  and  we  go  to  some 
pains  to  set  him  right  and  he  departs, 
thanking  us,  but  says  nothing  about 
payment. 

Enter  elderly  female  of  command- 
ing aspect,  who  r^ards  us  balefuUy 
through  her  spectacles,  although  we 
cannot  recollect  having  done  anything 
wrong  that  could  have  in  any  way 


aflFected  elderly  females,  yet  we  in- 
stinctively fear  her,  and  when  after 
an  ominous  pause  she  informs  us  that 
the  Baptist  Church  of  X is  get- 
ting up  an  advertising  sheet  to  pur- 
chase portieres  for  the  church  vestr>% 
we  abjectly  subscribe  and  part  with 
our  last  dollar,  all  the  while  wishing 

the  Baptist  Church  of  X and  the 

elderly  female  in  a  region  where  noth- 
ing but  asbestos  portieres  would  be  a 
protection. 

Enter  befogged  individual  with  car- 
pet-bag and  cane.  '*Mr.  F.  in?"  Now 
we  are  getting  a  trifle  tired  of  the 
wearing  monotony  of  the  question, 
and  so  answer  with  acerbity,  "Don't 
know  the  man,  never  heard  of  him." 

"Why,"  he  continued,  staring  at  us, 
"you  ought  to  know  him,  his  name  is 
on  the  next  door." 

"Then  why  in  the  old  Harry  don't 
you  go  to  his  office  and  ask,  instead 
of  coming  here  to  find  out?"  we  ask 
in  some  heat. 

This  appears  to  strike  befogged  in- 
dividual as  an  entirely  new  idea,  a 
brilliant  one,  in  fact,  which  he  loses  no 
time  in  adopting,  and  we  hear  him  in 
a  moment  telling  his  troubles  to  Mr. 
F.  in  subdued  tones. 

As  we  lock  our  office  door  to  go 
to  lunch,  a  member  of  the  Hook  and 
Ladder  Company  levies  a  little  assess- 
ment of  fifty  cents  for  tickets  to  its 
forthcoming  ball,  and  a  young  lady 
whom  we  cannot  recollect  at  all,  but 
who  greets  us  with  all  the  assurance 
of  old  acquaintanceship,  collects  twen- 
ty-five cents  for  a  box  of  "Globe  soap," 
and  we  betake  ourself  homeward, 
wondering  how  long  we  shall  be  able 
to  stand  it  if  this  state  of  things  con- 
tinues. 


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PLEASURE   SEEKERS 

A  great  many  interesting  details  of 
social  life  are  discussed  in  our  front 
office.  It  is  here  that  various  im- 
portant phases  of  church,  academy, 
guild,  club  and  musical  life  are  set- 
tled, filed  and  docketed  away  in  the 
minds  of  those  interested.  Uncon- 
sciously, perhaps,  we  have  acquired  a 
sort  of  composite  knowledge  of  va- 
rious affairs ;  so  composite  in  fact  that 
we  at  times  have  the  greatest  difficulty 
in  bringing  any  order  out  of  the  cha- 
otic condition  of  our  mind. 

The  condition  of  mind  to  which 
we  have  at  times  been  reduced  can  be 
imagined  should  one  of  our  readers 
take  a  chair  some  day  in  our  back 
office  when  the  tide  of  travel  is 
setting  strongly  in  the  direction  of  our 
little  business  centre.  It  is  a  mild 
afternoon  and  the  doors  of  the  vari- 
ous offices  are  open.  The  dentists 
are  busily  at  work,  the  ice  and  water 
officials  are  playing  an  absorbing 
game  of  "Sixty  Three,"  and  the  mer- 
its of  certain  new  styles  of  dresses  are 
being  discussed  in  the  front  office  with 
the  general  effect  of  something  as 
follows : — 

"Haw,  haw,  haw,  why  don't  you 
play — turn  round  in  the  back,  Ann — 
so  pretty — ^and  Litchfield  said  that — 
Emily,  don't  you  think  so  too — ow! 


ow!  doctor,  you're  killing  me — and 
foulard  sleeves — well,  I'll  be — go  on 
and  play  —  clickatick  tick,  clickatick 
tick,  clickatick  tick — now,  John,  you 
know  better  than— don't  like  crimson 
with  that  complexion — tr-r-r-r-r-r-ing 
— hallo,  central — get  off  the  line — 
clickatick  tick,  clickatick  tick — Mr. 
F.'s  office  next  door — bet  you  Jeffries 
will  do  him — no,  we  don't  keep  calen- 
dars— so  pretty!  Ann,  I'm  going  to 
have  one  just  like  it — no,  sir,  he's 
busy  now — ee-ee-ee-ow,  doctor,  what 
is  the  use  of  breaking  a  man's  jaw — 
my  deal — ^now,  tend  to  business — Hey, 
girls,  how  are  ye  to-day?  All  right, 
eh?"— bang! 

Here  we  are  supposed  to  shut  the 
door  with  great  violence  and  depart 
in  search  of  a  boiler  factory  for  sooth- 
ing quiet. 

Still  we  like  cheerful  bustle,  we  en- 
joy our  profession,  even  if  there  are 
certain  drawbacks,  and  we  should 
miss  our  community  very  much 
should  we  be  compelled  to  part  with  it 
for  even  a  short  time.  We  enjoy  the 
business  variety  and  cosmopolitan  in- 
terests that  pass  in  and  out  and  give 
us  a  chance  to  become  philosophical 
even  if  at  times  a  little  muddled.  We 
enjoy  company.  Come  in  and  see  us 
when  you  are  in  want  of  diver- 
sion. 


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The  Black  Fan 


By  Ernest  Glanville 
Author  of  •*  Tales  from  the  Veldt,"  "  Commandeered  Ciold,"  ^  Max  Thornton,"  etc 


IT  was  a  black  fan,  fringed  with 
black  lace,  and  on  one  of  the 
fingers  of  the  hand  that  held  it 
was  a  mourning  ring  with  a  sin- 
gle rose  diamond.  The  bracelet  on 
the  slender  wrist  also  was  jet  black. 

The  mourning,  thought  Malcolm 
McCallum,  was  overdone.  For  that 
matter,  everything  in  the  Southern 
Republics  was  overdone,  even  the  re- 
publics. There  were  too  many  of 
them  for  comfort.  "What  they  have 
to  learn,*'  said  Malcolm  McCallum, 
Master  of  Collmore  and  of  little  else, 
"is  discipline — gad  I  and  the  women 
need  it  first.  Discipline  them  first, 
then  amalgamate  them  into  one  de- 
cent State." 

"Of  matrimony,"  said  his  compan- 
ion. 

"Eh?    What?" 

"You  were,  I  think,  speaking  of 
amalgamating  our  women." 

"Your  countries — ^your  little  bits  of 
States,  Mr.  President.  Your  women ! 
They  are  charming,  but  they  have  no 
thought  for  anything  but  the  little 
arts  of  coquetry." 

The  President  smiled  a  little  drily. 
"If  it  were  not  for  our  fair  friends," 
he  said,  "there  would  be  no  conspira- 
cies, no  revolutions,  no  distraction. 
It  would  be  what  you  call  a  bore- 
dom." 

The  Master,  watching  the  languid 
fluttering  of  the  black  fan  across  the 
patio,  wondered  whether  it  concealed 

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the  face  of  a  conspirator  or  of  a  ma- 
ture dame,  widowed,  fat,  and  ostenta- 
tiously melancholy. 

"Par  example  r  murmured  the 
President,  with  the  slightest  nod 
toward  the  fan. 

"A  conspirator?    She  I" 

"All  women  are  conspirators,  my 
friend ;  the  old,  because  they  have  had 
their  triumphs,  and  don't  wish  others 
to  succeed;  the  young,  because  they 
have  ambitions." 

"And  she — ^has  she  ambitions  or 
regrets  ?" 

"She  has  but  now  arrived." 

"A  stranger?" 

"Pardon!  She  is  yet  young — and, 
as  we  say,  has  arrived  at  years  of  in- 
discretion— is  it  not  so?*' 

"I  see,  she  has  stepped  out  of  short 
skirts  into  a  plot  Done  up  her  hair 
and  fastened  the  coils  with  a  dagger. 
It  is  childish.  President,  and  a 
trifle  bloodthirsty.  We  put  such 
as  she  in  reformatories  in  our  coun- 
try." 

"Excellent!"  murmured  the  Presi- 
dent. "But  who  would  attempt  such 
a  feat?" 

"Yet  it  would  be  for  her  own 
good,"  said  the  Master,  warming  to 
his  argument.  *Tt  would  keep  her 
out  of  mischief,  save  her  from  re- 
morse and  preserve  her  womanli- 
ness." 

"True,  most  true.  It  would,  indeed, 
save  her  from  herself,  but  then — ^what 


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THE   BLACK  FAN 


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use — no  one  would  undertake  the 
task.    The  sense  of  chivalry " 

"Qiivalry  be  hanged  I  I  don't  rec- 
ognize the  chivalry  which  encour- 
ages a  girl  to  share  in  the  dangers  of 
a  conspiracy.  Hang  it  all !  She  may 
be  engaged  in  some  mad  scheme 
which  would  send  some  poor 
wretches  to  their  death/' 

"That  is  certain." 

"Certain !    And  you  do  nothing !" 

The  President  blew  rings  of  smoke. 
"There  are  rules  to  all  games — see? 
To  the  conspirators  a  term  of  grace 
— ^and  she  has  achieved  nothing  yet. 
Still,  it  is  a  pity — oh,  yes,  I  admit — 3l 
great  pity.  But  again,  where  is  the 
man?  I  pass  my  friends  in  review 
and  there  is  none — not  one  who  would 
have  the  courage  to  save  that  beauti- 
ful young  lady  from  the  consequences 
of  her  imprudence." 

"Is  she  beautiful?" 

"As  a  spring  morning — lovely  as  a 
sunset — stately  as  a  cloud  in  a  sum- 
mer sky,  a  face  that  is  perfect.  But 
what  are  words?  Young,  beautiful, 
and  rich.  The  man  who  would  save 
her — ^but  there  are  no  men  now." 

"I  don't  know,"  said  the  Master, 
looking  thoughtfully  across  at  the 
black  fan. 

The  President  sighed  gently.  "I 
have  memories,  sad  memories  of  one 
as  young.  It  was  in  the  Revolution 
of  December  14th.  or  January  25th — 
I  am  not  clear.  Her  side  lost,  her 
possessions  were  confiscated,  her 
health  gave  way — she  died  poor.  It 
was  her  first  conspiracy." 

"That  was  hard  luck." 

"Truly  terrible,"  said  the  President, 
softiy.  "She  had  no,  what  you  call, 
'run  for  her  money.'     If  there  had 


been  some  one  to  run  away  with  her — 
amalgamate  was  your  word — she 
would  have  been  happy  to-day." 

The  Master  laughed.  "Did  I  sug- 
gest running  away  with  our  friend 
opposite?  You  malign  me.  Presi- 
dent. What  I  suggested  was  that  she 
should  be  retired  temporarily  to  safe 
lodging  until  this  fever  of  conspiracy 
had  cooled." 

"Do  you  know  the  Haciendo 
Morro?" 

"Never  was  there." 

"It  is  a  retired  place,  under  the  pro- 
tection of  a  careful  servant.  The 
rich  young  seiiorita  could  remain 
there  comfortably  as  a  guest." 

The  Master  laid  a  muscular  hand 
on  the  President's  knee.  "What  are 
you  driving  at?" 

The  President  looked  sharply  at 
the  young  Scot.  "You  started  the 
discussion,  I  think,  and  I  took  it  up. 
I  mean  this.  It  would  be  good  for 
me,  first  of  all.  I  am  honest,  you  see. 
Good  for  the  State,  and  good  for  her 
if  she  were  removed  for  a  month.  A 
revolution  is  nearly  due.  It  will 
come  anyhow,  but  it  will  be  more  vio- 
lent if  she  remains.  If  there  were  a 
man — ^brave,  resolute,  discreet — ^who 
would  secrete  her  for  that  month  the 
State  would  stand  by  him." 

"If  he  failed?" 

"The  State  would  bury  him." 

The  Master  smiled.  "Failure  is 
not  to  be  thought  of ;  but  for  success 
a  man  would  want  a  couple  of  good 
horses  and  some  cash." 

"They  could  be  supplied." 

"Good!  Now  answer  me  two 
questions,  Seiior  President." 

"Proceed,  mon  ami." 

"You  brought  me  to  this  hotel  with 


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THE   BLACK   FAN 


a  purpose.  You  meant  that  I  should 
sec  this  lady  with  the  fan  ?" 

"You  are  a  man  of  ideas,"  said  the 
President,  suavely. 

"So  you  meant  to  use  me.  I  don't 
object — if  it  serves  my  purpose. 
Next — ^against  whom  does  the  lady 
conspire  ?" 

"The  plot  is  fixed  to  assassinate 
me,"  said  the  President,  calmly. 

"Then,"  said  the  Master,  with  a 
kind  of  admiration,  "you  risked  your 
life  when  you  drove  out  with  me  to 
this  place  alone." 

"Ah,  no.  They  have  not  yet  fixed 
on  the  day,  and  it  would  not  be  eti- 
quette to  dispose  of  me  now.  Save::, 
mon  braver 

"Pardon,  but  you  are  a  queer  lot. 
You  Ve  made  one  mistake,  though, 
by  showing  yourself  in  my  company, 
if  you  meant  me  to  play  the  role  of 
abductor." 

"That  is  easily  settled."  And  the 
next  morning  the  Master  found  how 
easily  it  had  been  settled  by  the  pres- 
ence of  a  paragraph  in  the  Govern- 
ment organ  narrating  how  his  Excel- 
lency the  President  had  declined  to 
entertain  the  proposal  of  a  distin- 
guished Scottish  gentleman  of  rank 
to  raise  a  corps  of  roughriders,  a  re- 
jection which  had  much  annoyed  the 
eminent  stranger. 

The  Master  of  Collmore  smiled 
grimly  at  the  President's  humor,  for 
his  scanty  resources  had  been  that 
morning  mysteriously  replenished,  and 
his  servant  had  announced  that  his 
stables  held  two  fine  saddle  horses. 

In  the  heat  of  the  day,  when  the  in- 
dolent Southerners  enjoyed  a  siesta 
in  cool  retreats,  Malcolm  McCallum 
mounted  one  of  the  pair  and  rode  out 


booted  and  spurred  to  the  white  inn  in 
the  country  where  he  had  seen  the 
lady  of  the  black  fan. 

He  had  the  dusty  highway  to  him- 
self, but  when  he  strode  into  the 
flagged  patio  clashing  his  spurs  and 
switching  his  brown  boots,  he  saw  that 
some  people,  at  any  rate,  were  awake. 
Two  swarthy  gentlemen,  dressed  in 
white,  were  seated  in  cane  diairs, 
smoking  the  eternal  cigarette  and 
listening  gravely  to  the  liquid  music 
dropping  from  the  lips  of  an  exqui- 
sitely beautiful  girl.  The  Master 
brought  up  with  his  heels  together  and 
his  keen  gray  eyes  fixed  in  a  stare  of 
admiration — ^too  evidently  the  eflFect  of 
amazement  to  be  rude,  but  so  evident 
that  the  black  fan  was  raised  so  that 
only  the  eyes  appeared — such  glorious 
orbs  as  he  had  never  imagined — of  a 
dark  violet  with  the  fire  of  passion  in 
their  depths.  One  of  the  men  rose 
with  quick  resentment,  one  hand  grop- 
ing intuitively  for  a  weapon  that  was 
not  where  it  should  have  been  at  his 
side. 

The  Master  recovered  himself, 
raised  his  broad  hat  respectfully,  and 
turned  to  the  far  verandah,  or  cor- 
ridor, to  seek  his  old  seat,  when  the 
other,  the  older  man,  rising,  returned 
his  bow  with  a  question. 

"Senor,  the  English  gentleman,"  he 
said. 

"McCallum,  senor,  at  your  ser- 
vice." 

"Our  service  is  for  gallant  gentle- 
men." It  was  the  lady  who  spoke, 
and  the  tone  of  her  voice  thrilled  the 
Master.  He  bowed  again,  and  the 
elderly  man,  clapping  his  hands,  a 
peon  at  his  orders  brought  forward 
another  chair. 


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"You  were  here  yesterday  with  the 
despot,"  said  the  young  man,  suspi- 
ciously. 

"Allow  me,  comrade,"  said  the 
older  man.  "Seiior,  we  heard  with 
concern  this  morning  that  you  were 
no  longer  of  the  Government  party." 

"As  you  have  read,"  said  the  Mas- 
ter, for  the  gentleman  appeared  to 
await  his  answer. 

"Then  permit  me,"  said  the  older 
gentleman.  "The  Seiiorita  Isabella 
Carrera  y  Carrera,  who  will  receive 
you  as  a  friend,  possibly,  who  knows, 
as  an  adherent." 

"I  am  already  the  senorita's  sub- 
ject," said  the  Master,  with  a  pro- 
found bow. 

"The  Senor  Rodriquez  Carrera,  the 
senorita's  cousin." 

The  lithe  young  Spaniard  and  the 
tall  Scot  exchanged  glances  of  mutual 
dislike  while  they  salaamed. 

Then  the  Senor  Rodriquez  intro- 
duced the  elder  man  as  Senor  Zelaga, 
after  which  the  Master  accepted  a 
cigarette  and  took  his  seat. 

"We  have  been  disputing,"  said  the 
elder  man,  "about  the  subject  of  the 
control  of  an  estate.  The  seiiorita 
holds  that  there  can  be  no  success 
without  attention  to  details.  The 
senor,  her  cousin,  supports  the  view 
that  details  destroy  initiative  and 
boldness  in  enterprise.  We  await 
your  opinion,  seiior." 

"I  am  afraid  I  know  more  about 
the  management  of  mounted  troops 
than  of  estates,"  said  the  Master. 

"We  have  heard,"  said  Zelaga, 
"your  illustrious  career — wounded  in 
Cuba,  again  in  Natal,  Captain  of  the 
Scottish  Horse,  leader  of  the  Gauchos 
recently  in  Venezuela." 


"And  compelled  to  fly  the  country," 
added  the  Master,  with  a  smile  at  the 
lady. 

"Then  your  views  on  the  value  of 
detail  as  opposed  to  bold  strategy — " 

"I  am  not  interested  in  the  discus- 
sion of  military  matters,"  said  the 
lady,  speaking  for  the  second  time 
and  closing  her  fan  as  a  signal  appar- 
ently that  the  conference  was  sum- 
marily dismissed. 

She  gave  her  hand  in  turn  to  the 
two  senors,  bowed  to  McCallum,  and 
moved  with  a  beautiful  grace  down 
the  alcove. 

Zelaga  looked  after  her,  rubbing 
his  chin,  while  Rodriquez  wore  a 
smile  that  was  a  trifle  insolent. 

"I  am  sorry,"  said  the  Master, 
"that  I  broke  up  this  council  of  war." 

"Of  'accounts,'  seiior,"  said  Rodri- 
quez. "But  I  am  told  a  question  of 
war  is  always  a  matter  of  accounts 
with  gentlemen  of  your  race." 

"And  with  you  so  much  a  question 
of  security  that  you  shelter  yourself 
behind  a  woman's  petticoats." 

*'Carrambor  exclaimed  the  other, 
thickly. 

"Come— come,  senors  both,  there  is 
no  need  here  for  a  quarrel,"  inter- 
posed Zelaga. 

"None  in  the  least,"  said  the  Mas- 
ter, coolly ;  "but  I  am  in  the  state  that 
is  willing  to  humor  any  man,  and 
since  the  seiior  was  rather  free  with 
his  speech,  I  replied.  For  my  part  I 
would  as  soon  crack  a  bottle." 

"Excellent,"  replied  Zelaga,  giving 
a  warning  look  at  the  scowling  Rod- 
riquez, and  taking  McCallum  by  the 
arm.  "Our  host  will  bring  up  a 
bottle  dating  back  to  a  seventeenth 
President  from  now — sl  good  fellow 


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THE   BLACK   FAN 


who  had  the  misfortune  to  be  shot  in 
this  very  patio.   After  you,  seiior." 

McCallum  strode  away  across  the 
court,  while  Zelaga  whispered  in  Car- 
rera's  ear  and  hurried  after. 

Two  bottles  were  cracked,  but 
Zelaga  was  slow  with  his  glass,  and 
the  Master  did  the  wine  more  justice. 

"So  the  President  did  not  deal  well 
with  you.     I  am  distressed." 

"No,"  said  the  Scot  gloomily.  "He 
had  no  use  for  me  after  keeping  me 
hanging  about." 

"It  is  distressful;  yes,  surely  so. 
But  my  poor  house,  seiior,  is  at  your 
service,  my  horses,  my  servants — ^all." 

"You  are  too  generous.  All  I  seek 
is  service." 

"There  is  that  estate,"  said  Zelaga, 
slowly. 

"True,  but  I  am  no  cattle  man." 

"It  is  a  large  estate,  and  there  are 
gauchos  tnalos  who  give  trouble.  I 
cannot  say,  but  it  may  be  that  a  small 
troop  could  be  raised  to  guard  the 
property,  and  a  bold  leader — ^you  un- 
derstand." 

"I  would  prefer  to  lead  cavalry,  but 
needs  must  when  somebody  drives. 
Eh,  seiior,  and  I  should  be  glad  to  be 
of  use.  You  speak  of  robbers — are 
there  many?" 

"They  give  us  much  trouble,  much 
anxiety,  but  we  will  talk  of  them  later 
— ^to-morrow,  perhaps." 

''Manana!  It  is  always  to-mor- 
row. Even  with  the  President  who 
fears  a  conspiracy.  Doubtless  you 
have  heard " 

"A  conspiracy  against  the  Presi- 
dent! Impossible!  But  your  glass, 
sefior,  it  is  empty." 

"That  is  easily  rectified.  But  there 
is  another  form  of  emptiness,"  and 


the  Master  sighed  heavily  as  he 
grasped  the  glass  in  an  unsteady 
hand. 

"You  were  talking  of  the  Presi- 
dent." 

"The  emptiness  of  the  heart,  senor, 
when  the  senorita  one  loves  is  cold — 
the  emptiness  of  the  pocket.  Ah !  it 
is  a  hollow  world — ^hollow,"  and  the 
Master  tilted  the  empty  bottle. 

"The  President  is  a  man  so  be- 
loved, no  one  would  plot  against  him. 
You  are  mistaken." 

"The  President,  he  is  an  idiot,  let 
me  tell  you.  When  I  asked  him  why 
he  did  not  suppress  the  conspiracy,  fie 
answered,  ^Manand — ^to-morrow.  Al- 
ways to-morrow,  when  the  time  is  to- 
day— you  understand,  seiior?" 

The  seiior  looked  disturbed.  "To- 
day," he  stammered.  "The  President 
will  act  to-day." 

The  Master  laughed  loudly.  "The 
President  is  an  idiot,  you  take  my 
word  for  it.  I  was  speaking,  seiior," 
continued  McCallum,  with  great 
gravity,  "of  what  I  should  do  if  I  were 
President.  I  should  string  up  the 
conspirators  to-day  and  inquire  into 
the  conspiracy  to-morrow." 

Zelaga  looked  sour.  "Doubtless 
the  President  took  you  more  into  his 
confidence,  since  he  told  you  so 
much." 

"No,  sir.  Your  President  seemed 
to  regard  a  conspiracy  as  a  natural 
relaxation,  a  little  holiday-making. 
It  amuses  the  other  side  and  doesn't 
hurt  him.  Sofvez,  my  friend.  But 
why  waste  time.  About  this  troop  of 
horse  you  are  raising.  Show  them  to 
me,  and  if  there  is  any  man  can  lick 
them  into  shape  it  is  Malcolm  Mc- 
Callum, Master  of  Collmore,  the  best 


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cavalry  leader  out  of  Scotland  this 
day,"  and  the  speaker,  standing  up, 
struck  his  heels  together  and  twirled 
his  moustache. 

''Mananar  said  Zelaga,  suavely, 
"When  I  have  consulted  my  friends." 

The  seiior  left,  and  McCallum,  very 
upright,  thundered  for  the  landlord 
and  went  with  a  slight  stagger  to  his 
room. 

"He  will  suit  us  well."  It  was 
Zelaga,  and  he  was  talking  to  the 
seiiorita  Isabella  and  her  cousin^  "I 
say  he  will  suit  us.  But  we  must  get 
him  away,  for  he  is  a  fool  in  his 
speech,  however  good  as  a  soldier." 

"Is  he  good  as  a  soldier?"  asked 
Rodriquez. 

"In  Venezuela  the  troops  swore  by 
him.  Be  sure  it  is  better  to  have  him 
on  our  side." 

"And  where  is  he  now  ?"  asked  the 
senorita. 

"Asleep,  like  the  pig  he  is,"  mut- 
tered Rodriquez. 

"Ah,  well,  senorita,"  said  Zelaga, 
"these  soldiers  of  fortune  have  a 
weakness." 

"A  filibustero,"  said  the  sefiorita, 
scornfully,  "and  a  drunkard." 

"Mirador  himself  told  me  this  fUi- 
bustero  was  the  best  guerilla  leader 
he  has  seen,  and  Mirador  has  seen 
many." 

"As  you  will,"  said  she,  "but  keep 
him  away  from  me." 

"I  will  see  to  that,  my  cousin,"  said 
Rodriquez,  fiercely.  "I  will  teach 
him  his  place." 

"Leave  it  to  me,  I  beseech  you," 
said  Zelaga.  "I  will  send  him  out  to 
the  Gaucho  camp  while  he  yet  sleeps, 
for  as  I  gather,  the  President  suspects 
the  plot,  but  is  unaware  of  the  day." 


The  filibustero  did  not  sleep,  how- 
ever. He  spent  the  afternoon  at  the 
window,  and  he  saw  several  country- 
women arrive,  each  one  carrying  a 
black  fan,  and  each  departing  after  an 
interval  without  that  necessary  harm- 
less aid  to  coquetry.  A  few  minutes 
later  the  seiiorita,  out  of  her  window, 
saw  a  horseman  on  the  white  road 
mastering  a  fiery  mustang.  Her  first 
feeling  of  admiration  at  his  horse- 
manship was  lost  in  passionate  anger 
at  the  discovery  that  the  horse  was  her 
own,  a  steed  which  had  never  yet  been 
ridden  by  a  man.  Before  she  could 
act  the  horse  was  fast  vanishing  in  a 
cloud  of  dust.  Still  watching,  she 
saw  the  horseman  on  his  return,  and 
was  down  at  the  gate  to  meet  him. 

"This  insolence!"  she  exclaimed 
imperiously.  "Explain  your  con- 
duct 1" 

"Pardon,  senorita,"  said  the  Mas- 
ter, for  he  was  the  culprit. 

"It  is  my  horse  you  have  ill- 
treated." 

"I  might  have  known,"  said  the 
Master,  with  a  bow,  "that  so  perfect 
a  horse  could  only  have  belonged  to 
you,  yet  by  an  unfortunate  mistake  I 
thought  it  was  mine." 

She  turned  to  a  peon  and  with  a 
quivering  voice  ordered  him  to  take 
the  horse  away — ^turn  it  loose,  kill  it, 
do  anything  so  that  she  never  saw  it 
again. 

"A  pity,"  he  said ;  "for  the  horse  is 
better  for  the  lesson  I  gave  him." 

"A  lesson!  It  is  you  who  re- 
quire  "    She    paused,    her    eyes 

fixed  on  a  fan  he  carried.  "How 
came  you  by  that  ?" 

"This  fan?  See,  senorita,  there  is 
something  curious  about  it.    One  side 


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THE   BLACK   FAN 


It  is  black,  on  the  other  there  are  red 
wafers,  no  less  than  two  hundred  and 
fifty.  The  number  of  a  troop  of 
horse." 

"Where  did  you  find  it?" 

"On  the  road,  senorita.  A  poor 
woman  complained  that  she  had  been 
robbed,  and  thanks  to  the  speed  of 
your  horse  I  overtook  the  robber,  and 
this  fan,  strange  to  say,  was  the  only 
thing  he  had." 

"And  the  man?" 

"The  man  went  his  way." 

"A  pity,"  she  said.  "You  should 
have  killed  him." 

"For  taking  a  fan?" 

"For  robbing  a  poor  woman,"  she 
said,  hotly.  "I  will  keep  the  fan.  Did 
the  woman  say  where  she  came 
from?" 

"From  the  Ayo  del  Inferno." 

"That  is  near  the  Haciendo  Mor- 
ro,"  she  murmured.  "I  forgive  you, 
senor,"  she  added,  with  a  brilliant 
smile,  "and  I  forgive  my  beautiful 
horse.  I  will  restore  this  fan  to  the 
owner,  and  be  discreet,  seiior.  I  beg 
for  her  sake.  It  is  unpardonable  for 
a  woman  to  lose  her  fan." 

"I  will  be  discreet  as  night." 

She  stood  playing  with  the  fan, 
and  he  lingered  absorbed  in  her 
beauty. 

"It  occurs  to  me,  seiior,"  she  said, 
"that  you  may  be  disposed  to  ride  to 
the  Ayo  del  Inferno  tomorrow,  if  in 
the  meantime  I  do  not  see  the  poor 
woman." 

"I  am  at  your  command,  senorita." 

"To-morrow,  then,  seiior,"  and  she 
swept  him  a  courtesey. 

The  Master  went  in  to  his  dinner 
and  reflected.  Evidently  the  pace 
was    quickening.      He  had  meant  to 


secure  a  fan  himself,  but  so  had  some 
one  else,  and  luck  had  been  with  him. 
The  spots  on  the  fan  meant  the  num- 
ber of  recruits  in  certain  districts ! 
And  he  was  to  be  sent  to  one  of  these 
districts,  to  be  put  out  of  the  way,  per- 
haps. "What  a  beauty,"  bethought, 
"and  what  a  little  spit-fire.  What  a 
delicious  smile,  and  what  a  vindictive 
suggestion  that  was  that  I  should 
have  killed  the  man  who  stole  the 
fan."  His  thoughts  were  with  her 
when  he  listened  under  the  brilliant 
skies  to  the  music  of  a  mandolin  out- 
side where  the  peons  were  at  play, 
and  when  he  heard  her  name  pro- 
nounced his  attention  was  arrested 
immediately.  They  were  two  women 
who  spoke. 

"My  heart  beats  for  her,"  said  one, 
"so  tender,  so  young." 

"Sacred  Mother — ^yes — a  very  lamb 
in  the  paws  of  the  black  seiior  and  that 
fool,  Zelaga." 

"But  what  can  we  do  but  pray  to 
the  Holy  Virgin,"  and  the  two  moved 
oflF. 

The  Master  was  yet  in  bed  when 
Zelaga,  dressed  for  the  road,  entered 
his  room. 

''Hasta,  seiior!" 

"What's  the  hurry?" 

"It  is  'to-day.'  You  will  ride  to 
the  place  at  once." 

"And  the  directions — I  must  have 
directions." 

"You  will  find  your  orders  when 
you  reach  the  Ayo  del  Inferno.  Car- 
rambor  and  Zelaga  struck  his  fore- 
head. 

"What  has  happened?  You  seem 
worried,  seiior." 

"Something  has  leaked  out — how  I 
cannot  say,  but  we  must  hurry." 


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"And  you  wish  me  to  ride  to  this 
infernal  gorge — ^alone?" 

"We  have  no  one  to  spare,  seiior. 
It  is  thirty  miles  out,  the  last  ten  miles 
over  rough  country.    You  will  go  ?" 

"Of  course." 

Zelaga  hurried  out  and  hurriedly  re- 
turned, his  face  shining  with  perspir- 
ation. 

"I  almost  forgot.  The  pass-word 
is  the  'Seventh  of  May.'  You  under- 
stand?" 

"The  'Seventh  of  May*.  It  is  now 
April  25th,  and  the  revolution  was  ex- 
pected within  a  month.  I  under- 
stand."' 

Zelaga  opened  his  mouth  to  speak, 
but  withdrew  in  silence. 

The  Master  got  out  of  bed.  He 
was  fully  dressed,  and  in  one  hand  he 
held  a  revolver.  He  stood  a  mo- 
ment listening,  then  went  to  the  win- 
dow. 

"Ah!"  he  muttered,  "there  goes 
Zelaga  with  an  escort.  The  seiiorita 
left  at  six,  and  Rodriguez,  the  'black 
one,'  an  hour  later.  Some  one  has  be- 
trayed them,  and  they  yet  give  me  the 
'Seventh  of  May'  as  a  watchword.  I 
don't  like  it— no,  I  don't.  But  it 
seems  to  me  the  seiiorita  is  in  greater 
danger  than  I  am,  and  that  is  great 
enough,  I  take  it,  to  satisfy  a  glut- 
ton." 

He  examined  his  cartridges,  placed 
the  weapon  in  his  pocket,  then  tramped 
heavily  across  his  room  and  out  to  the 
stable,  where  he  saddled  his  horse  and 
brought  it  round  to  the  door,  when  he 
made  a  hurried  meal. 

"I  will  pay  you  when  I  return,  land- 
lord." 

"Senor,  I  am  but  a  poor  man," 
cried  the  landlord;  and  the  Master 


smiled  grimly  at  the  look  of  conster- 
nation in  the  fat  face. 

"So,"  he  thought,  "he  thinks  I  am 
good  as  dead."  He  settled  up,  and 
was  directed  as  to  the  road  he  should 
follow. 

A  few  miles  on  he  overtook  a  horse- 
man who  saluted  in  military  fashion — 
a  man  heavily  armed. 

"You  are  the  illustrious  Captain," 
he  said,  after  a  look  which  ranged 
over  horse  and  rider.  "I  have  orders 
to  g^ide  you." 

"Who  gave 'orders'?" 

"Colonel  Rodriquez  Carrera,  sefi- 
or." 

The  Master  certainly  was  a  man  of 
prompt  action.  In  a  moment  he  had 
the  astonished  cabdlero  by  the  throat, 
and  a  minute  later  on  the  ground, 
trussed  up  with  his  own  reins. 

The  Master  cocked  his  revolver. 
"Let  us  understand  each  other,  com- 
rade. If  you  wish  to  live,  the  matter 
is  in  your  own  hands.    SofuezT 

The  man  recognized  the  position  at 
once. 

"Your  Colonel  ordered  you  to 
shoot  me,  eh?" 

"The  knife  is  more  certain,"  said 
the  man,  with  a  grin. 

"Of  course.  Did  he  give  you  a 
reason  ?" 

"You  were  an  enemy  to  the  cause." 

"What  cause?" 

The  seiiorita's  cause.   Excellency." 

"What  part  does  the  senorita  play 
in  this  game,  comrade?" 

'The  illustrious  lady  owns  the  larg- 
est estate,  senor,  and  is  the  most 
wealthy.  Moreover,  her  brother  was 
killed  in  the  last  affair." 

"And  who  is  the  next  heir  to  the 
estate." 


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THE   BLACK   FAN 


"Her  cousin,  the  Sefior  Colonel 
Rodriquez,  but  he  also  is  in  the 
cause." 

"Is  he?"  said  the  Master.  "Well, 
thank  you  for  the  information.  One 
more  question.  Where  is  the  seii- 
orita?" 

"The  seiiorita  is  riding  to  the  ren- 
dezvous at  the  Ayo  del  Inferno." 

"On  this  road?" 

**Non,  senor.  This  road  leads  to 
the  Haciendo  Morro,  the  property  of 
the  Despot.  When  you  took  this  road 
it  was  proof  you  were  in  league  with 
the  President — ^perhaps  his  spy.  The 
road  to  the  rendezvous  is  farther  on." 

"Do  they  ride  fast?" 

"They  will  camp  ten  miles  from 
here." 

"And  the  password?" 

"Is  Isabella;  seiior." 

"I  see.  Many  thanks.  Now  I  will 
exchange  clothes.  I  think  we  are  of 
a  height." 

The  exchange  was  made.  The 
Master  remounted,  clad  in  a  gay 
bolero  with  silver  buttons,  a  red  sash, 
wide  trousers,  sombrero  and  an  ar- 
mory of  weapons. 

"Now  what  shall  I  do  with  you,  my 
friend?" 

"It  is  death  if  I  return  to  the  Colo- 
nel, senor.  You  can  let  me  free  with- 
out fear." 

The  Master  untrussed  the  man, 
tossed  him  a  gold  coin,  and  left  him. 

"I  will  tie  your  horse  up  an  hour's 
ride  ahead,  but  don't  hurry  to  over- 
take him." 

"I  will  crawl,  senor,"  said  the  ras- 
cal, with  a  grin,  and  the  Master  rode 
on  to  tie  the  led  horse.  Then  he  gal- 
loped on  till  he  saw  the  dust  from 
moving   men  ahead  and   shaped   his 


course  through  the  country,  taking 
cover,  till  by  night  he  approached  the 
camp  on  foot.  He  was  resolved  to 
abduct  the  senorita  that  night,  for  it 
was  clear  to  him  that  the  girl  was 
being  used  by  her  cousin  to  play  for 
stakes  which  she  would  not  enjoy. 
There  were  but  few  in  the  camp,  and 
chance  favored  him.  The  senorita 
left  her  tent  to  talk  to  the  soldiers,  and 
in  her  enthusiasm  visited  the  sentries, 
who  were  posted  wide  s^rt  Be- 
tween two  McCallum  took  up  his  po- 
sition as  a  sentry,  and  as  she  drew 
near  in  the  thickening  shadows,  Zda- 
ga,  who  had  been  with  her,  went  back 
towards  the  road  to  interrogate  a 
fresh  arrival.  When  she  was  only  a 
few  paces  off  Zelaga  shouted  out  in 
evident  excitement. 

"What  does  he  say?  Do  you 
hear?"  she  asked. 

McCallum  had  heard,  and  for  a  mo- 
ment his  heart  chilled^  for  it  was  his 
own  name  Zelaga  had  shouted,  and  he 
judged  the  arrival  was  the  man  whose 
clothes  he  wore. 

"I  heard,  senorita."  He  strode  to 
her  side.  "Be  not  afraid  and  trust 
me.  He  said  we  were  betrayed.  Ccxne, 
senorita,  this  way,"  and  seizing  her 
hand  he  drew  her  away.  A  few  yards 
she  ran,  then  stopped. 

"I  will  not  fly.    No,  it  is  shameful!" 

With  one  hand  he  drew  her  man- 
tilla round  her  mouth,  picked  her  up, 
and  hurrying  from  bush  to  bush 
reached  his  horse  as  the  cries  from 
the  camp  increased.  Swing^g  her  to 
the  saddle  he  held  her  there  while  he 
subdued  the  frightened  horse,  and 
then  led  it  at  a  walk  till  the  fast  deep- 
ening shadows  blotted  out  every  ob- 
ject.   Then  he  mounted,  and  widi  one 


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arm  about  her  still  struggling  figure 
slowly  found  his  way  back  to  the  road, 
which  he  followed  till  he  lit  on  the  road 
to  the  Haciendo  Morro,  which  he  had 
marked  carefully.     Then  at  the  sound 
of  hoof-beats  from  the  camp  he  urged 
his  horse  into  a  gallop  for  a  couple  of 
miles.     He  pulled  up  to  listen,  and 
hearing  no  sound  of  pursuit  removed 
the    mantilla  and  rode  on  in  silence, 
while  she  implored,  threatened,  and 
scorned  him  till  exhausted  by  the  fury 
of  her  anger.     In  the  morning  he  saw 
the  white  walls,  outbuildings,  and  de- 
fences of  a  large  haciendo  where  an 
officer  of  the  President's  staff,  known 
to  him,  met  them.     Of  the  two  the 
sinewy  Scot  was  the  most  exhausted, 
for  when  she  found  that  her  abductor 
would  listen  to  nothing  she  had  leant 
her  whole  weight  on  his  arm  in  a  de- 
termined effort  to  tire  him  out.     He 
staggered    as    he    set    foot    on    the 
ground.     She    turned    upon    him    in 
another  outburst  of   scorn,   and   saw 
who  it  was. 

''SancHssima  Maria — you !"  she  ex- 
claimed. 

"At  your  service,  senorita,  al- 
ways," he  replied  with  difficulty. 

Her  eyes  flashed.  "Then  I  have 
been    betrayed,    and    I    thought    Ze- 

laga " 

"The  Senor  Zelaga  knew  nothing, 
seiiorita.  I  carried  this  out  my- 
self." 

"You  took  me  alone,  from  among 
my  own  people?" 

"For  your  own  good,  seiiorita,  be- 
lieve me." 

She  turned  away  with  heaving 
breast,  and  disdaining  the  attentions 
of  the  President's  officer  went  with 
erect  head  into  the  house,  where  she 


was  received  by  the  wife  of  the  Ha- 
ciendado. 

"You  have  accomplished  it,  then?" 
said  the  officer,  turning  on  McCallimi. 
"And  you  have  signed  your  death- 
warrant." 

"I  have  set  my  hand  to  that  pretty 
frequently  of  late,  but  what  is  wrong 
now?" 

"Every  man  in  both  camps  will 
turn  against  you,  and  all  the  women." 

"I  am  more  interested  to  learn 
what  arrangements  you  have  made  to 
keep  the  lady  now  we  have  her." 

"I,  seiior?  I  took  no  part  in  this 
abduction.  I  leave  at  once  with  my 
men  to  join  the  President." 

"Then  give  my  respects  to  your 
President,  and  tell  him  that  my  part 
in  the  play  is  over.  Either  I  have 
men  to  defend  the  place  if  it  is  at- 
tacked or  I  quit.    Saves  T 

"But,  seiior " 

"That  is  my  decision." 

"There  are  peons  on  the  place — and 
Gauchos." 

"How  many?" 

"A  hundred,  senor,  and  well 
armed." 

"All  right.  Collect  them  and  give 
them  orders  that  they  must  obey  me." 

The  officer  hesitated,  but  finally 
consented,  and  the  weary  Master, 
pulling  himself  together,  took  his 
company  of  servants  and  horse- 
thieves  in  hand.  He  had  a  look  at 
the  defences,  sent  out  pickets,  and  then 
went  in  to  snatch  a  little  sleep.  For 
three  days  he  remained  on  duty  about 
the  Haciendo  without  having  seen 
the  senorita.  On  the  fourth  he  found 
that  the  peons  had,  deserted.  The 
news  was  given  him  on  the  veranda, 
and  the  senorita  hearing,  came  out  to 


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h4 


tHE   BLACK   t=AN 


gfreet  him  with  a  mocking  laugh.  As 
they  stood  a  horseman  brought  the 
news  that  a  large  body  of  men  was 
advancing  from  the  Ayo  del  Inferno. 
The  senorita  laughed  again. 

**nie  road  to  the  north  is  yet 
open,"  she  said,  sweetly.  "You  had 
better  run  while  there  is  time." 

There  were  fifty  Gauchos  in  the 
yard  standing  by  their  horses.  They 
were  men  the  Haciendado  had  said 
could  be  trusted.  The  Master  strode 
out  to  them,  mounted  a  fresh  horse, 
and  with  half  the  number  he  rode  out, 
leaving  orders  with  the  Haciendado 
to  guard  the  senorita. 

"My  friends  will  be  here  soon," 
she  cried,  "and  it  is  I  who  will  then 
give  orders." 

She  saw  the  little  troop  with  the 
tall  leader  disappear  to  the  right,  and 
an  hour  later  she  clasped  her  hands 
as  she  saw  her  own  banner  at  the 
head  of  a  large  force  of  mounted  men. 
They  came  around  the  hill  onto  the 
plain  and  advanced  in  good  order. 

She  looked  at  the  set  face  of  the 
Haciendado. 

"Your  brave  friend  the  filibustero 
has  abandoned  you.  Surrender  to 
me  and  be  wise." 

The  owner  of  the  Haciendado 
looked  gloomily  at  the  advancing 
force,  then  his  sombre  eyes  blazed. 

"Look,  look!" 

She  looked  and  saw  a  dark  body,  a 
little  band  of  mounted  men  led  by 
one  gigantic  figure,  swooping  on  the 
main  force  and  opening  out  like  a  fan 
as  it  went.  Then  little  puflfs  of 
smoke  broke  out  as  the  Gauchos  fired 
from  the  saddle.  Then  she  saw  the 
whirling  of  the  bolas  and  heard  the 
crash  of  the  collision.     She  saw  her 


friendly    force    wither    away    befort 
that  thunderbolt. 

She  was  standing  pale  and  trem- 
bling when  the  Master  returned  at 
the  head  of  his  little  band,  who  were 
shouting  and  laughing  in  the  flush  of 
their  triumph. 

"What  has  happened?"  she  said 
wildly.     "Where  are  my  friends?*' 

"They  still  run,  senorita." 

"The  cowards !" 

"Not  at  all,  senorita,  merely  the 
victims  of  a  surprise.  They  will 
come  again." 

"You  think  so?"  and  she  looked  at 
him  with  reviving  confidence. 

"Certain.  They  will  come  in 
greater  strength.  I  am  afraid  I  have 
bungled." 

She  opened  her  fan,  and  shot  an  in- 
quiring look  over  the  top. 

"It  was  that  fan,"  he  said,  with  a 
smile. 

She  raised  her  beautiful  eyebrows 
and  lowered  the  fan  to  show  the 
smile  on  her  red  lips. 

"The  romance  of  it,"  he  went  on. 
"I  said  to  myself,  'Here  is  a  beauti- 
ful senorita  who,  with  romantic  ideas 
of  cJiivalry,  is  entering  into  conspir- 
acy wherein  there  can  be  no  chivalry.' 
My  idea  was  to  save  her,  and  now 
see,  senorita,  I  must  either  expose 
you  to  great  danger  by  keeping  you 
here,  or  to  equal  danger  if  I  set  you 
free  to  return  to  your  friends." 

"I  was  working  in  a  just  cause, 
against  injustice  and  tyranny,"  she 
answered  proudly. 

"You  thought  so,  of  course,  but 
believe  me,  senorita,  that  is  all  ro- 
mance. Others  are  working  for 
their  own  interest." 

"No,   seiior.    You   do   not   under- 


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stand    my   countrymen.    They    place 
honor  first." 

**Your  cousin,  for  instance?" 

She  laughed  scornfully. 

"Your  cousin,"  he  said,  "hopes  to 
succeed  to  your  estate.  That  was 
the  prize  he  was  working  for." 

"It  is  false." 

"He  is  with  the  President  now. 
I  heard  it  from  one  of  the  wounded." 

"Do  you  mock  me,  senor?"  she 
whispered. 

"It  is  true.  Now,  seiiorita,  tell  me, 
what  must  I  do?" 

"If  it  is  tnie  I  care  nothing,"  she 
said,  passionately.  "Rodriquez,  who 
was  my  brother — he  a  traitor,  and 
still  my  heart  believes  him  guilty." 

"Now,  what  must  I  do?" 

"Let  them  come,"  she  said;  "they 
will  find  me  here." 

"Now,  senorita,  you  will  see  how 
men  can  fight."  He  turned  to  the 
Gauclios,  jubilant  yet.  "Comrades," 
he  said,  in  Spanish,  "you  see  here  a 
lady  in  distress — ^betrayed  by  her 
friends.  Her  safety  is  in  my  keep- 
ing, and  I  will  hold  this  place  against 
all  till  she  is  sure  of  her  own.  I  led 
you  well,  you  followed  me  like  heroes, 
and  you  will  stand  by  her  to  death." 

"To  the  death!"  they  shouted,  in 
hot  excitement,  all  their  gallantry  on 
fire. 

Isabella  went  forward  and  held  out 
her  hands.  "My  friends,"  she  said, 
her  rich  voice  ringing,  "from  my 
heart  I  thank  you." 

"Good!"  said  the  Master,  cheer- 
fully. "Now  I  will  get  die  place  into 
a  state  of  defence."  And  for  the  rest 
of  the  day  he  worked  unceasingly, 
strengthening  the  walls,  getting  in 
provender   for   the  horses   and   food 


for  the  garrison.  Then  they  waited, 
and  two  days  later  the  outposts 
brought  in  word  that  another  force 
was  approaching.  It  arrived  in  the 
evening  about  a  thousand  strong,  and 
camped  around  the  Hacienda.  The 
next  morning  a  flag  of  truce  appeared, 
and  the  Master  went  out  to  meet  it. 
Isabella  met  him  on  his  return. 

"What  is  the  message,  seiior?" 

McCallum  laughed.  "The  revolu- 
tion is  over,"  he  said.  "The  two 
sides  have  joined,  and  the  army  out 
there  is  the  army  of  the  Republic." 

"And  what  do  they  want?" 

"They  ask  for  the  senorita  of 
Carrera,  whose  estates  have  been  for- 
feited, and  whose  person  is  to  be 
dealt  with  as  the  clemency  of  the 
President  may  decide." 

"And  your  answer,  senor?"  she 
asked,  calmly. 

"My  answer  is  that  the  Isabella  of 
Carrera  does  not  leave  this  place  ex- 
cept with  the  honors  of  war  and  full 
possession  of  her  property." 

"You  defy  the  Republic?"  she 
whispered. 

He  laughed  again.  "That  is  about 
it.    I  wonder  what  the  President  will 

think?" 

"For  me,"  she  said,  in  low  tones. 
"You  do  this  for  me.     It  is  wonder- 
ful, but  I  cannot  allow  such  sacrifice. 
I  will  surrender." 
"Rodriquez     Carrera     commands." 
She  smiled.     "Yes,  even  to  him." 
"No,    senorita.     That    is    not    my 
way,"  and  the  veins  on  his  forehead 
swelled.     "I,  too,  have  been  tricked, 
and  I  will  teach  them  all  a  lesson." 

He  stood  looking  at  the  disposition 
of  the  enemy's  forces.  The  com- 
mander, evidently  assured  of  success. 


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THE   BLACK   FAN 


was  taking  his  leisure.  A  couple  of 
guns,  attended  by  a  small  escort,  were 
moving  to  a  little  hill  in  the  rear,  and 
the    main    force    was    at    breakfast. 

The  bold  Scot,  taking  no  fewer 
tlian  twenty  men,  issued  through  a 
back  gate,  took  the  cover  of  a  gully, 
and  in  twenty-five  minutes  had  cap- 
tured the  g^ns  and  was  galloping 
back,  while)  a  score  of  sharpshooters 
poured  in  a  galling  fire  on  a  troop  of 
horse  who  started  to  retrieve  the  dis- 
aster. The  excited  Gauchos  yelled 
with  enthusiasm  as  the  guns  clattered 
into  the  yard,  and  capered  about  as 
shell  after  shell  broke  over  the  spot 
where  the  enemy  were  thickest,  scat- 
tering the  men  in  wild  confusion. 

"To  the  charge!"  shouted  the 
Gauchos. 

"Not  yet,  my  children,"  said  the 
Master,  but  he  sent  out  a  thin  line  of 
skirmishers,  and  the  Gauchos  being 
good  marksmen  they  compelled  tlie 
enemy  to  shift  ground.  Then  the 
Master  working  out  under  cover  fell 
with  half  his  force  on  an  isolated  de- 
tachment who  gave  in  at  once,  and 
returned  with  cries  of  "Isabella!" 
The  cry  reached  the  main  force  of  the 
enemy,  was  taken  up,  and  immediately 
a  large  band  of  mounted  men  galloped 
towards  the  Hacienda  with  arms  lifted 
yelling  "Isabella!" 

As  a  result  of  his  dashing  aggres- 
sive tactics  the  Master  before  the 
morning  saw  his  little  force  swelled 
by  three  hundred  men  and  two  gims 
with  ammunition.  In  the  afternoon 
there  was  desultory  firing,  and  at 
dusk  he  delivered  another  attack 
riding  through  a  part  of  the  camp, 
wheeling  round  behind  a  hill,  and  re- 
turning to  the  Hacienda  at  a  gallop, 
while  the  alarmed  enemy  were  firing 


wildly  to  their  own  damage. 
Through  the  night  other  deserters 
came  in,  and  in  the  morning  the  much 
harrassed  enemy  had  retired  to  a  safe 
distance. 

Isabella's  manner  had  chang^. 
She  was  subdued,  and  her  color 
came  and  went. 

"You  are  low-spirted,  sefiorita,  and 
it  seems  to  me  we  have  done  well." 

"It  is  not  that,"  she  sighed.  "It  is 
the  danger." 

"I  will  not  detain  you,  if  you  wish 
to  go,"  he  said,  stifily;  "but  these 
men  are  fighting  for  you." 

"It  is  not  for  myself,"  she  said, 
"but  for  the  men  and  for  you,  seiior. 
Why  take  such  risks?  A  leader 
should  be  more  careful  of  his  safety." 

"There  are  times  when  a  leader 
must  take  more  risks  than  his  men." 

She  sighed  and  looked  down.  "Can 
I  do  nothing?" 

"The  men  are  quick  to  catch  an  in- 
fluence. Give  them  a  smile,  sefior- 
ita." 

She  responded  at  once.  Her  face 
lighted  up,  and  the  men  acknowl- 
edged her  presence  with  shouts  as  she 
advanced. 

"Have  I  done  well?"  she  said,  giv- 
ing the  Master  a  thrilling  glance. 

"We  are  your  very  humble  sub- 
jects," he  answered.  "I  have  been 
thinking  that  it  would  be  best  to  march 
to  your  own  estate,  sefiorita,  if  it  is 
not  far." 

"That  is  my  dearest  wish.  There  I 
should  feel  that  I  had  some  share  in 
your  work.    It  is  not  far,  my  General." 

During  the  day  the  little  force 
marched  out,  and  by  the  evening  had 
reached  the  senorita's  estate.  The 
news  travelled  fast,  and  the  next  day 
the    recruits   came    in    by    hundreds. 


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THE   BLACK   FAN 


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The  day  after  the  President  himself 
appeared  at  the  head  of  his  army  and 
asked  for  an  interview  with  the  Mas- 
ter. 

"Well,  sefior,  I  await  your  explana- 
tions," said  the  President,  shooting 
out  his  lower  jaw. 

"1  have  none  to  offer,  sir." 

"None.  It  seems  to  me  this  is  a 
revolution  you  have  arranged." 

"You  mistake.  I  am  only  carry- 
ing out  your  instructions  to  hold 
the  sefiorita  for  a  month  in  retire- 
ment." 

''Carramho!  Another  week  of 
such  retirement  is  more  than  I  wish. 
What  do  you  ask?" 

"A  full  pardon  for  the  senorita  and 
a  command  for  myself." 

"Good.  I  appoint  you  commander 
of  the  cavalry." 

"And  the  senorita?" 

"Ah!  she  will  judged  by  the  State." 

"That  is  a  pity,"  said  the  Master. 
"After  all,  the  revolution  seems  to  be 
popular.  Already  I  have  a  thousand 
men." 

"And  I  have  ten  thousand  men," 
said  the  President.  "Come,  let  us 
reason.  Some  one  must  be  punished, 
either  the  senorita,  or " 

"Proceed." 

"Or  yourself.  We  must  abide  by 
precedents,  and  precedents  demand  a 
victim.  You  do  not  contemplate  ex- 
tinction, do  you?" 

"Frankly,  I  don't.  To  cut  the 
matter  short,  either  the  senorita  or 
myself  must  go  under." 

"I  have  your  appointment  already 
filled  in,  and  the  pardon  for  the 
senorita,  in  case  you  were  stubborn. 
Both  signed  and  sealed." 

"Give    them   both  to  me,  and  you 


shall    have    your    answer    within    an 
hour." 

"Do  nothing  foolish,  seiior.  I  al- 
ready foresee  great  developments 
with  you  as  my  cavalry  leader. 
There  is  a  little  matter  outstand- 
ing with  my  neighbor.  Be  careful, 
mv  friend,  bright  eyes  are  deceiv- 
ing." 

The  Master  smiled  and  returned  to 
his  stronghold. 

"I  have  accepted  the  President's 
terms,"  he  said  to  the  senorita.  "He 
grants  you  full  pardon.  There  is  the 
document." 

She  glanced  at  the  paper,  then 
looked  earnestly  into  the  Master's 
grave  face. 

"Were  there  other  conditions? 
Resistance  to  the  government  is  not 
so  easily  condoned." 

"There  were  others,  but  they  do 
not  concern  you,  senorita.  Now  I 
will  bid  you  farewell." 

"You  leave  me?"  She  turned 
away,  speaking  almost  beneath  her 
breath.     "Are  you  so  soon  weary?" 

"Weary,  senorita?"  She  turned 
her  face  toward  him  and  there  was 
in  her  eyes  a  meaning  that  rent 
his  heart.  "Ah,  love,  if  I  could  re- 
main !" 

"Why  not?"  she  smiled. 
"Because — well,  my  work  is  done 
and  my  punishment  is  that   I  must 

go- 

"Your  punishment!  Do  you  think, 
senor,  that  I  will  take  my  liberty  at 
your  peril?" 

"Who  spoke  of  peril,  senorita?  I 
am  only  a  soldier  of  fortune,  a  'Uli- 
bustero/  " 

"I  would  cut  out  my  tongue  rather 
than  call  you  so  now,"  she  said,  ten- 


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A    HERO 


derly.  "But  you  spoke  of  punish- 
ment. Will  they  banish  you?  Par- 
don, senor,  I  am  rich.  If  you  would 
take "     She  sighed  and  stopped. 

"I  will  take,"  he  whispered.  "If  I 
dare  I  would  hold  you  in  my  arms 
one  moment  and  then  let  what  will 
come,  come." 

"You  have  dared  more,"  she  mur- 
mured, and  he  strained  her  to  his 
heart. 

"Why  do  you  go?  You  love  me, 
yet  you  go;  why — why?" 

"Because  I  must." 

"Those  were  the  other  conditions?" 
she  asked,  looking  up  into  his  face 
with  a  new  fear  in  her  glorious  eyes 
— a  fear  for  him. 

"Good-by,  light  of  my  heart!"  he 
said,  hoarsely,  tore  himself  from  her, 
and  rode  away  at  a  mad  gallop. 
'President,"  he  said,  a  few  minutes 
later,  "I  am  at  your  service.  The 
sefiorita  accepts  your  pardon,  and  the 
men  will  disband." 

"It  is  a  pity.  There  are  many 
pretty  women,  but  there  are  few 
leaders.    You  know  the  penalty?" 

The  Master  nodded. 

"The  precedents  demand  it.  You 
will  be  shot." 

"I  am  ready." 


The  President  reflected.  There  is 
no  hurry.    To-morrow  will  do." 

"Always  to-morrow,"  said  the 
Master,  with  a  careless  laugh,  but 
through  the  long  night  he  thought  of 
Isabella  and  of  the  joy  he  was  losing. 

"Well,"  said  the  President,  in  the 
morning,  "is  life  not  sweeter  this 
morning  ?" 

"Very  sweet,  President." 

"Then  you  relent?" 

The  Master  swore. 

"I  will  send  a  padre  to  you,"  said 
the  President,  and  as  he  left  the  tent 
some  one  entered. 

"Away !"  said  the  Master.  "I  need 
no  paternosters." 

"Malcolm!" 

He  leaped  up.     "Isabella!" 

"Ah,  my  friend,  see  what  I  bring 
you,"  and  she  handed  him  the  paper 
containing  his  appointment.  "But 
was  it  fair  to  me?" 

"But,"  said  the  Master,  sternly, 
"what  of  your  pardon?" 

"The  President  thought,  senor," 
she  said,  blushing  red,  "he  thought  if 
>'0u  took  my  estate  the  State  would 
be  satisfied." 

"Took  your  estate?" 

"It  includes  me  also." 

"Ah,  Isabella,  beloved!" 


A  Hero 

By  Clarence  H.  Urner 

I    SEE  a  picture  on  the  canvas  of  the  Past — 
A  lad  with  wondering  eyes,  but  not  afraid  of  Life : 
I  see  an  image  by  the  faithful  Present  cast — 

A  youth  elate  and  strong,  equipped  for  any  strife : 
The  Future  shows  a  man  o'erspent,  at  Life  dismayed. 
Who  looks  on  Death  with  calm,  clear  vision  unafraid. 


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Winter 


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Thomaston  Harbor 


Thomaston— The  Home  of  Knox 


By  Mary  Stoyell  Stimpson 


SELDOM  in  recent  years  have 
the  eyes  of  New  Englanders 
turned  with  keener  interest 
toward  patriotic  exercises 
than  did  they  at  the  unveiling  of  the 
tablet  in  memory  of  General  Knox,  at 
Thomaston,  Maine,  in.  July  last,  on  the 
anniversary  of  that  hero's  birth. 

The  settlement  and  growth  of 
Thomaston;  the  reasons  for  Knox 
selecting  that  region  as  his  home 
when  his  military  and  Cabinet  services 
were  over ;  and  his  far-reaching  influ- 
ence upon  local  industries  are  so 
closely  interwoven  that  one  can  hardly 
study  the  history  of  the  man  or  town 
apart.  Each  forms  the  complement  to 
the  other. 

Thomaston,  South  Thomaston  and 
the  neighboring  city  of  Rockland  pos- 
sess much  interest  to  the  historian, 
this  region  "being  the  scene  of  the 
730 


earliest  discoveries  by  the  English  on 
any  part  of  the  mainland  of  Maine 
or  New  England."    The  Cabots,  dis- 
covering the  coast  as  early  as   1497, 
were  followed  by  private  adventurers 
of    all    nations.     The    English     and 
French  tried  to  lay  claims  to  certain 
tracts  and  fitted  out  expeditions   of 
discovery  to  sustain  their  pretensions. 
It  was  in  1605  that  Capt.  George 
Weymouth,  sent  from  England  in  the 
"good  ship  Archangel,"  with  a  crew 
of  twenty-nine  men,  discovered  "Pen- 
tecost  Harbor  and   the    islands,    St. 
George's."  One  Rosier,  who  had  been 
sent  to  write  up  the  expedition,  saw 
the    future    advantages    of    the    St. 
Georges  River   and   was   enthusiastic 
over  its  "gallant  coves  and  the  most 
excellent  places  that  nature  had  made 
as  docks  to  grave  or  careen  ships  of  all 
burthens    secured     from   all   wincjs." 


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He  noted  the  land  which  bore 
"goodly  tall  fir,  spruce,  birch,  beech 
and  oak."  Having  expatiated  at  length 
upon  the  merits  of  this  stream  and 
quoting  the  laudatory  remarks  of  his 
companions,  he  tempers  his  admiration 
thus  quaintly:  "I  wiM  not  prefer 
it  before  our  river  of  Thames,  be- 
cause it  is  England's  richest  treas- 
ure." Pring,  Smith  and  others  fol- 
lowed Weymouth  and  the  section  be- 


tory  between  the  Piscataqua  and  Pe- 
nobscot. One  of  these  was  the  grant 
made  of  the  lands  on  the  river  St. 
Georges,  called  the  ^Lincolnshire  or 
Muscongus  Patent,'  or  grant.-  In 
later  years  the  greater  part  of  this 
grant  passed  into  the  hands  of  Samuel 
Waldo  and  came  to  be  styled  the  Wal- 
do Patent,  which  is  the  origin  of  most 
of  the  land  titles  in  Waldo  and  Knox 
Counties."     Samuel     Waldo     dying. 


One  of  Thomaston's  Shady  Streets 


came  well  known,  adventurers  from 
all  countries  engaging  in  traffic  and 
fishing  along  the  coast.  In  1630  "the 
Council  of  Plymouth  in  England, 
which  had  been  established  for  the 
purpose  of  settling  and  governing 
New  Engla'nd,  being  in  danger  of  dis- 
solution by  royal  authority,  made 
various  and  hasty  grants  to  different 
adventurers  of  nearly  the  whole  terri- 


the  patent  fell  to  his  four  children. 
One  of  his  daughters,  Hannah,  mar- 
ried Thomas  Flucker,  and  to  him  her 
brother  Samuel  (2d)  sold  his  two 
shares.  Thus*  "by  purchase  and  in- 
heritance the  Waldos  and  Fluckers 
owned  the  whole  patent.  In  the  Rev- 
olutionary War  the  Waldo  and  Fluc- 
ker families  adhered  to  the  crown  and 


•From  address  of  Hon.  J.  E.  Moore. 


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THOMASTON— THE   HOME   OF   KNOX 


Stuart  Portrait  of  Gen.  Henry  Knox 

their  estates  were  wholly  or  in  part 
sequestered.  General  Knox  mar- 
ried Lucy  Flucker  in  1774,  and  as  Mrs. 
Knox  was  an  ardent  patriot,  going 
against  her  family  in  this,  as  she  did 
in  marrying  Henry  Knox,  her  share 
was  not  forfeited.  She  inherited  one- 
fifth  and  General  Knox,  by  purchase 
and  legislative  action,  acquired  four- 
fifths."  So  because  of  the  Waldo  patent, 
Thomaston  received  General  Knox  in 
the  role  of  private  citizen  and  man  of 
affairs  after  his  twenty  years*  service 
to  his  country.  He  had  been  known 
as  a  major-general  in  the  Continental 
army,  Washington's  chief  of  artillery., 
first  Secretary  of  War  under  the  Con- 
stitution, and  founder  of  the  Society 
of  the  Cincinnati,  when  he  quitted 
public  life  and  took  up  his  residence 
on  the  banks  of  the  Georges  in  1795. 
Henry  Knox  was  born  in  Boston, 
in  a  little  two-story  wooden  buildinp 
near  the  foot  of  Summer  Street.  He 
was  the  seventh  of  ten  sons.  Onl- 
four  children  lived  beyond  infancy, 
the  two  elder  of  these  were  drowned 
at  sea.  William,  the  youngest  of  the 
family,  was  always  more  or  less  asso- 


ciated with  his  brother  Henry  until 
his  death.  Shortly  before  his  decease 
his  father  was  overtaken  by  financial 
misfortune,  so  tliat  just  as  Knox  was 
ready  to  be  graduated  from  the  Bos- 
ton grammar  school,  he  found  himself 
not  only  fatherless,  but  the  sole  sup- 
port of  his  mother  and  little  brother. 
Leaving  school  he  took  a  place  in  a 
Cornhill  bookstore,  where,  though 
required  to  pay  strict  attention  to  busi- 
ness, he  seized  every  spare  moment 
for  reading,  and  thus  became  familiar 
with  the  translations  of  all  the  classics 
and  learned  to  speak  and  write  the 
French  language.  Evidently  this  vo- 
cation was  to  his  liking,  for  as  soon 
as  he  attained  his  majority  he  went 
into  business  on  his  own  account,  giv- 
ing his  establishment  the  name  of 
'The  London  Bookstore."  One  of 
the  best  patrons  of  this  fashionable 
resort  was  IMiss  Lucy  Flucker,  a 
leader  in  Tory  circles  in  Boston. 

Of  French  Huguenot  descent,  her 
father,  Thomas  Flucker,  was  the  royal 
secretary  of  the  province  and  stood 
high  as  a  social  dignitary.  Miss 
Lucy  was  a  fine  scholar,  and  in  her 


Memorial  Tablet  and  Boulder 


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THOMASTON— THE   HOME   OF   KNOX 


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frequent  purchases  of  books  lingered 
to  talk  over  their  contents  with  Knox 
until  there  ensued  a  sort  of  literary 
courtship.  The  Flucker  family  scented 
danger  and  opposed  the  match 
strongly.  They  scorned  the  advent  of 
a  "rebel"  into  their  family,  but  they 
soon  found  that  they  had  a  beautiful 
rebel  of  their  own  with  whom  they 
must  deal,  for  Miss  Lucy  was  deter- 
mined to  cling  to  the  man  she  loved. 


declared  martial  law  and  threatened 
its  penalties  on  such  as  left  the  city 
without  permission,  when  Knox,  less 
than  a  year  married,  left  the  town  in 
disguise,  by  night,  accompanied  by 
his  faithful  wife,  who  bore  the  sword 
which  he  had  worn  in  the  militia  ser- 
vice, and  with  which  he  was  to  win 
his  great  military  fame,  secreted  in 
the  lining  of  her  cloak.  Knox  had 
given  much  study  to   military  engi- 


Copyright  1900,  by  Bigelow  &  Jordan,  Boston 

The  Old  Knox  Mansion,  "Montpelier" 


The  Fluckers  believed  with  all  their 
Tory  hearts  that  the  English  would 
prevail,  and  dreaded  for  their  child 
the  chain  of  misfortunes  which 
seemed  to  them  inevitable  from  such 
a  mesalliance.  She  not  only  loved 
the  man,  but  fully  shared  his  views, 
and  their  marriage  was  solemnized  in 
1774,  just  as  political  troubles  were 
thickening  in  the  country.  The  British 
had  taken  possession  of  Boston,  Gage 


neering  and  flattering  inducements 
were  offered  him  to  assist  the  royal 
forces,  but  he  chose  rather  to  volun- 
teer his  aid  to  General  Ward  at  Bunker 
Hill.  After  this  battle,  he  built  the 
fort  at  Roxbury  which  called  forth 
Washington's  admiration.  At  this 
time  also  began  the  life-long  friend- 
ship between  these  brave  Generals — 
Washington  only  a  few  weeks  before 
his  death  writing;  "I  can  with  truth 


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THOMASTON— THE   HOME   OF    KNOX 


say,  that  there  is  no  man  in  the  Uni- 
ted States  with  whom  I  have  been  in 
habits  of  greater  intimacy;  no  one 
whom  I  have  loved  more  sincerely; 
nor  any  for  whom  I  have  had  a 
greater  friendship." 

It  was  while  Knox  was  at  Lake 
Champlain  for  bitterly  needed  stores 
and  artillery  that  he  met  Major  Andre, 
whose  refinement  and  intelligence 
made  a  lasting  impression  on  him 
whose  unpleasant  duty  it  became, 
some  years  later,  to  serve  on  a  tribunal 
which  condemned  Andre  to  death. 
The  success  attending  the  hazardous 
undertaking  of  transporting  a  "noble 
train  of  artillery''  from  Ticonderoga 
to  the  fortifications  before  Boston 
was  appreciated  "by  Washington  and 
by  Congress,  who,  before  Knox's  re- 
turn from  the  expedition,  had  ap- 
pointed him  to  the  chief  command  of 
the  Artillery;  an  office  which  he  dis- 
charged with  increasing  reputation 
under  the  successive  ranks  of  Colonel, 
Brigadier  General,  and  Major-Gen- 
eral, to  the  end  of  the  war." 


THOMASTON    Railway   Station,   Formerly 

Part  of  the  Servants*  Quarters  at 

"Montpelier'* 


Grave  of  Henry  Knox 

General  Knox  took  possession  of  the 
estate  in  Maine  in  1792.*  "There  were 
five  hundred  squatters  on  the  Patent 
and  to  gain  complete  possession  actual 
entry  had  to  be  made  by  iivery  of  seiz- 
ing by  turf  and  twig.'  General  Knox 
was  disposed  to  treat  the  settlers 
fairly.  Some  reciprocated,  others  did 
not  and  were  ejected.  While  Secretary 
of  War  he  visited  Thomaston  and 
planned  to  improve  the  estate."  In 
1793  the  building  of  a  home  was  com- 
menced which  was  completed  in  1794, 
and  in  the  following  summer  Thomas- 
ton  opened  wide  her  gates  to  re- 
ceive as  honored  citizen  that  fa- 
mous general  and  statesmen,  Henr^^ 
Knox. 

The  mansion,  "Montpelier,"  was  in 
the  style  of  a  French  chateau,  three 
stories  in  height,  with  numerous  out- 
buildings. *'The  splendid  gateway 
leading  into  what  is  now  Knox  Street, 
surmounted  by  the  American  eagle 
well  carved  in  wood,  the  walks,  sum- 
mer houses,  orchards  and  forest  open- 
ings stretching  out  before  the  symmet- 
rical mansion  with  its  cupola,  balco- 
nies and  piazzas"  made  the  whole 
premises  unrivalled  for  beauty  in  New 
England.  Marvellous  stories  are  yet 
told  of  the  princely  entertainments 
given  beneath  this  roof,  "when,"  as 

•From  address  of  Hon.  J.  E.  Moore. 


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THOMASTON— THE    HOME   OF    KNOX 


735 


Holman  Day  says  in  his  ballad's  re- 
frain, "Knox  kept  open  house."     He 
gave  a  house-warming  on   Indepen- 
dence Day,  1795,  to  which  five  hun- 
dred people  came  in  answer  to  an  invi- 
tation to  "all  the  inhabitants  of  the  lo- 
cality." The  whole  tribe  of  Penobscot 
Indians   having   been   asked   to   visit 
him    found    him    so    satisfactory    a 
host    that     they     lingered    until    he 
was    obliged    to    suggest    their   de- 
parture.      Many    distinguished    for- 
eigners enjoyed  the  generous  hospi- 
tality of  "Montpelier,"  among  them 
Talleyrand,  Louis  Philippe,  afterwards 
King  of  France,  Duke  de  Liancourt 
(who  mournfully  remarked  to  a  sym- 
pathetic  American,   who   knew  that 
Knox  had  re-stocked  his  shabby,  per- 
sonal wardrobe:  "I  have  three  duke- 
doms on  my  head,  and  not  one  whole 
coat  on  my  back!")  and  Alexander 
Baring,  head  of  the  famous  house  of 
Baring  Bros.    There  was  a  great  im- 
petus given  to  social  life  in  Thomas- 


Capt.  Samuel  Watts 


"The  Old  Church  on  the  Hill,"  an  Historic 
Landmark 

ton  by  the  new  comers.  The  Gen- 
eral's  library  was  the  second  largest 
in  the  state,  Lady  Knox's  piano  was 
the  first  one  in  that  section,  while 
their  fine  saddle  and  carriage  horses 
conducted  gay  parties  across  the 
country. 

Knox  had  a  stock  *farm  for  the 
breeding  of  imported  cattle,  he  had 
five  saw  mills,  and  engaged  in  the 
lime,  fish,  and  brick  industries.  Yet, 
busy  as  he  was  with  all  these  enter- 
prises, he  found  time  to  help  in  public 
affairs.  In  1801  he  was  appointed  a 
member  of  the  General  Court  of 
Massachusetts,  and  in  1804  he  was 
chosen  one  of  the  Governor's  council. 
He  also  kept  up  an  active  correspond- 
ence with  the  leading  men  of  the 
times.  To  the  interest  of  the  town 
whose  citizen  and  heaviest  landowner 
he  had  become  he  gave  himself  with 
much  vigor.  Though  often  in  finan- 
cial straits,  owing  to  his  complex  busi- 
ness activities,  he  was  a  subscriber  to 
all  charities.     While  a  Unitarian  by 


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THOMASTON— THE   HOME   OF   KNOX 


the  people  to  worship.  In  1822  this 
bell,  having  become  disabled,  was 
sent  to  Boston,  where  it  was  recast 
by  its  maker  and  his  name  is  stamped 
upon  it: 

"Paul  Revere— 1822." 
Many  eminent  divines  occupied  this 
pulpit  in  the  days  when  Thomaston 
was  a  part  of  Massachusetts  common- 
wealth, but  religious  services  have 
been  discontinued  there  for  many 
years. 


Hon.  Edward  O'Brien 

faitli,  himself,  he  gave  substantially 
to  a  church  building  in  Thomaston 
which  was  to  be  used  by  any  denom- 
ination of  Christians.  This  meeting- 
house is  located  on  the  hill  west  of 
Mill  River,  and  is  the  oldest  house 
of  worship  injthe  section  of  what  was 
then  the  district  of  Maine.  The  money 
for  its  erection  was  raised  by  sub- 
scription. General  Knox  agreed  to 
furnish  £40  and  the  glass  provided 
that  it  should  be  built  in  1795.  It 
took  three  days  to  erect  the  frame. 
Men  came  from  all  the  adjoining 
towns  to  help  and  every  kind  of  team 
was  present.  A  good  deal  of  diffi- 
culty was  experienced  in  raising  the 
steeple  and  placing  it  in  position,  but 
it  was  accomplished.  The  pulpit  was 
set  up  high,  with  a  sounding  board 
over  it  to  throw  the  speaker's  voice 
down  to  the  audience.  In  1797  General 
Knox  purchased  a  bell  of  Paul  Re- 
vere of  Boston,  and  presented  it  to 
the  parish.  This  was,  for  many  years, 
the  only  bell  in  that  region  that  called 


O'Brien  MomjMEirr 


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tMOMASTON— THE  HOME  OP   KNoX 


;3? 


General  Knox  died  in  1806.  His 
widow  lived  in  the  mansion  until  her 
death  in  1824.  Later  the  property 
changed  hands,  the  various  out-build- 
ings were  sold,  and  after  the  mansion 
had  been  rented  to  several  tenants, 
it  was  torn  down.  As  Williamson 
says:  "Montpelier  ought  to  have  be- 
come the  property  of  the  public,  and 
been  preserved  as  sacred  to  the  mem- 
ory  of   its    departed    owner.     Some 


of  the  American  Revolution,  compris- 
ing the  chapter  named  in  honor  of 
General  Knox,  placed  the  bronze  tab- 
let as  a  tribute  to  his  memory. 

One  of  the  principal  streets  bears 
the  General's  name  as  does  the  lead- 
ing hostelry.  The  travelling  men  be- 
tween Boston  and  Rockland  have 
found  that  for  many  years  the  mention 
of  the  Knox  House  conjures  up  visions 
of  substantial  fare  and  good  cheer. 


At  Mill   River 


future  generation,  if  the  patriotism  of 
the  past  shall  survive  the  temptation 
of  the  present,  will  mourn  over  the 
insensibility  of  their  fathers,  which 
allowed  so  sacred  a  shrine  to  become 
obliterated."  The  only  bit  of  this 
historic  establishment  left  standing  to- 
day is  part  of  the  servants'  quarters 
or  cook  house,  built  of  brick,  and  now 
used  for  the  railroad  station.  It  is 
near  this  building  that  the  Daughters 


Two  important  industries  in  which 
Knox  engaged  are  still  the  leading 
ones  in  Thomaston:  ship  building 
and  lime-burning,  while  more  recently 
brick  making  has  been  resumed  under 
the  management  of  "The  Ornamental 
Brick  Company."  The  equipment  of 
this  new  plant  is  complete  and  thor- 
oughly up  to  date.  The  ship  yards 
of  Washburn  Bros,  and  Dunn  &  El- 
liott give  employment  to  a  large  num- 


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THOMASTON— THE    HOME   OF   KNOX 


ber  of  men  at  the  present  time,  while 
the  late  Edward  O'Brien  was  one  of 
the  most  famous  American  shipbuild- 
ers for  more  than  half  a  century.  He 
was  the  first  man  in  the  state  to  own 
the  whole  of  a  ship,  and  eventually 
owned  more  tonnage  individually 
than  any  man  in  the  country.  The 
ships  he  built  were  staunch  and  of 
excellent  model.  Some  of  them 
made  remarkable  passages.     He  held 


and  that  he  did  not  intend  to  allow 
his  name  to  go  to  protest  under  any 
circumstances.  On  other  occasions 
he  stood  back  of  the  banks  in  town, 
offering  them  all  needed  assistance. 
He  was  a  genial  man,  simple  in  his 
tastes,  disliking  show  atid  ostentation. 
He  had  an  inborn  sympathy  for  the 
poor  and  gave  much  in  private 
charities.  Among  his  public  gifts 
was  the  sum  of  ten  thousand  dollars 


A  Bit  of  Mill  River,  Showing  the  Spire  of  the  "Old  Church  on  the  Hill" 


many  public  offices  and  served  several 
terms  in  the  state  senate  and  the  lower 
house.  He  was  the  first  president  of 
the  Georges  Bank,  and  during  the 
panic  of  1857,  when  banks  all  over  the 
country  were  suspending  specie  pay- 
ments, Mr.  O'Brien  announced  that 
he  held  a  balance  in  sterling  with  Bar- 
ing Bros.,  in  London,  more  than  suf- 
ficient to  cover  every  bill  to  which  he 
had  placed  his  signature  as  President, 


to  his  native  town  of  Warren  and  a 
similar  amount  was  donated  to  Thom- 
aston;  in  each  case  the  income  was 
to  be  divided  annually  among  the 
deserving  poor. 

At  one  time  associated  with  Mr. 
O'Brien  in  trade  and  in  ship  build- 
ing was  the  late  Samuel  Watts, 
who  was  born  in  the  town  of 
St.  George,  but  who  was  a  resident 
of  Thomaston  during  a  long  period  of 


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THOMASTON— THE   HOME  OF   KNOX 


739 


years.  He  was  well  known  as  a  sea 
captain,  shipbuilder  and  owner,  poli- 
tician and  banker.  He  was  a  director 
of  the  Thomaston  National  Bank, 
and  director  and  President  of 
Georges  National  Bank.  In  1890 
he  gave  a  beautiful  Town  Hall 
to  Thomaston,  the  rent  of  the 
stores  in  which  is  by  his  request  de- 
voted to  the  worthy  poor  of  the  town. 
Some  years  previously  to  his  death. 
Captain  Watts  removed  to  Boston  but 
always  passed  his  summers  at  bis 
Thomaston  residence. 

Active  and  retired  mariners  are  nu- 
merous in  Thomaston's  population. 
Her  Captains  and  her  vessels  are 
known  in  every  port  in  the  world. 
And  for  more  than  half  a  century  she 
has  proudly  held  her  established  rec- 
ord **of  being  second  to  none  as  a 
shipbuilding  port." 

Lime-rock  is  found  in  large  quan- 
tities all  through  Knox  County  and 
lime  manufacturing  has  proved  a  prof- 
itable industry,  ever  since  Gieneral 
Knox  carried  on  his  flourishing  lime 
business,  shipping  gjeat  quantities  of 
lime  to  Boston  in  his  own  vessels. 
He  quarried  his  rock  from  what  is 
now  known  as  the  Prison  quarry,  in- 
side the  present  prison  walls. 

On  the  site  of  the  old  fort  on  the 
Georges  River,  the  lime  kilns  of  J.  A. 
Creighton  &  Co.  are  situated.  This 
fort  was  in  use  in  the  French  and  Ind- 
ian Wars.  It  was  nearly  fifty  years 
ago  that  the  late  J.  A.  Creighton  estab- 
lished this  business,  and  the  firm  have 
recently  increajsed  their  plant  until 
they  are  the  largest  individual  lime 
burners  in  Knox  County.  The  plant 
has  a  capacity  for  burning  250,000 
casks  a  year.     Quite  recently  other 


lime  burners  with  magnificently 
equipped  plants  sold  out  to  the  Rock- 
land-Rockport  Lime  Company,  a 
syndicate  whose  home  office  is  in 
Rockland,  Maine,  with  various  others 
in  New  York  city  and  Brooklyn,  N. 
Y.,  and  whose  daily  capacity  is  10,000 
barrels.  A  visit  to  the  quarries  and 
kilns  is  an  interesting  thing  which  at- 
tracts many  strangers. 

In  1823  the  Legislature,  having 
decided  to  locate  a  State  Prison  in 
Thomaston,  the  committee  for  pur- 
chasing a  site  decided  in  favor  of 
^'Limestone  Hill,"  arguing  that  the 
manufacture  of  lime  could  be  carried 
on  by  the  convicts  with  profit  to  the 
state.  There  proved  to  be,  however, 
no  great  demand  for  the  limestone, 
and  other  industries  were  substituted. 
To-day  the  greater  portion  of  the  in- 
mates are  employed  in  the  harness, 
carriage  and  broom  shops,  and  the 
present  warden.  Major  Hilman  Smith, 
has  fotmd  it  a  wise  and  profitable 
measure  to  cultivate  acres  of  hired 
land.  The  out-door  work  keeps  the 
men  in  better  disposition  and  the 
yield  of  vegetables  greatly  reduces 
the  food  bills.  In  the  criminal  statis- 
tics is  found  this  cheering  bit  of  news 
for  Pine  Tree  State  natives:  "There 
is  less  crime  in  Maine  in  proportion 
to  its  population  than  in  any  other 
state  in  the  Union."  The  prisoners 
are  well  fed,  the  discipline  is  mild,  and 
the  convicts  are  taught  that  the  state 
has  an  inclination  to  uplift  any  who 
care  to  reform. 

There  is  no  public  library  building 
in  Thomaston,  but  through  the  gen- 
erosity of  a  deceased  resident,  Mr. 
George  Fuller,  there  is  a  library  fund, 
and  in  pleasant  quarters    a  fine  col- 


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7M  THOM 

her  of  men  at  the  presei 

the  late  Edu-ard  O'Briei 

the  nK>5t  famous  Americ 

ers  for  m«»re  than  half  a  < 

m-as  the  first  man  in  the 

the  uk>iV  of  a  ship,  an 

owned    more    tonnage 

than  any  man  in  the  co 

ships  he  buih   were  stau 

excellent     nuxlel.    Some 

made  remarkable  passage 


A  Bit  of  Mill  Rivter,  Showi? 

many  pubhc  offices  and  sened  i 
terms  in  the  state  senate  and  the 
house.  He  was  the  first  presid 
the  Georges  Bank,  and  dunni 
panic  of  1857,  when  banks  aJiov. 

country  were  suspending  specie 
ments,'  Mr.  O'Brien  announced 
he  held  a  balance  in  steriing  with 

i„g  Bros.,  in  London,  more  than 
fident  to  cover  eveiybiii  to  whid 

had  placed  his  signature  as  Presid 


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f^  * 


nsL  X 


2il  HrrcE.^     ^^ 


/ 


Ifc  wscrasi  1^    -IMS. 

Ot  1»t  JCr    t     i^     ^       ^ 


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THE   NIGHTMAN'S   STORY 


lection  of  books,  with  a  pleasant  read- 
ing room,  invite  the  public. 

It  was  in  1780  that  General  Peleg 
Wadsworth,  a  brave  soldier  of  the 
Revolution,  commanded  troops  on 
the  Maine  coast,  having  his  head- 
quarters in  Thomaston,  The  old 
Wadsworth  house,  rich  in  historic 
memories,  has  long  since  disappeared. 
This  general,  a  Harvard  man,  grand- 
father of  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfel- 
low, was  a  man  of  fine  presence  **car- 
rying  himself  so  truly  that  many 
thought  him  tall."  He  built  the  first 
brick  house  in  the  city  of  Portland, 
Maine. 

Thomaston  has  always  been  a  town 
of  considerable  wealth.  Its  streets 
are  well  laid  out  and  the  residences 
substantial.  It  has  ideal  environ- 
ments and  many  of  the  drives  in  this 
vicinity  are  special  features  in  them- 
selves. Beyond  its  moneyed  pros- 
perityf,   Thomaston   is   rich   in   good 


citizens.  These  have  been  ambitious 
for  their  descendants,  and  in  schools, 
churches  and  village  improvements 
can  be  seen  their  worthy  aspira- 
tions. 

On  a  shaded^  quiet  street  stands  the 
home  of  Mrs.  Maude  Moore,  the  well 
known  poetess  and  sketch  writer. 
Probably  no  poem  written  by  a  Maine 
woman  is  more  widely  known  and 
loved  than  her  "Rock  of  Ages." 

The  life  of  the  town  is  mostly 
around  the  shipyards  and  wharves. 
Here  there  is  vigorous  activity.  On 
a  summer's  afternoon,  when  the  air  is 
filled  with  resinous  odors  from  these 
yards,  and  the  sounds  of  the  carpen- 
ters' tools  echo  along  the  shore  as  the 
St.  Georges  River  ripples  on  its  sinu- 
ous course,  the  picturesqueness  of  the 
scene  strikes  one  forcibly,  and  the 
impulse  comes  to  say:  "Ah,  yes, 
let  us  put  it  even  before  the  river  of 
Thames." 


The  Nightman's  Story 

By  Frank  H.  Spearman 


HIS    full    name   was    James 
Gillespie    Blaine     Lyons ; 
but   his    real    name    was 
Bullhead — ^just  plain  Bull- 
head. 

When  he  began  passenger  brak- 
ing, the  trainmaster  put  him  on  with 
Pat  Francis.  The  very  first  trip  he 
made,  a  man  in  the  smoking  car 
asked  him  where  the  drinking 
water  was.  Bullhead,  though  suffi- 
ciently gaudy  in  his  new  uniform, 
was  not  prepared  for  any  question 


that  might  be  thrown  at  him.  He 
pulled  out  his  book  of  rules,  which 
he  had  been  told  to  consult  in  case 
of  doubt,  and  after  some  study  re- 
ferred his  inquirer  to  the  fire 
bucket  hanging  at  the  front  end  of 
the  car.  The  passenger  happened 
to  be  a  foreigner  and  very  thirsty. 
He  climbed  up  on  the  Baker  heater, 
according  to  directions,  and  did,  at 
some  risk,  get  hold  of  the  bucket — 
but  it  was  empty. 
"Iss  no  vater  hier,"  cried  the  sec- 


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THE  NIGHTMAN'S  STORY 


741 


ond-class  man.  Bullhead  sat  half 
way  back  in  the  car,  still  studying 
the  rules.  He  looked  up  surprised, 
but  turning  around,  pointed  with 
confidence  to  the  fire-pail  at  the 
hind  end  of  the  smoker. 

"Try  the  other  bucket,  Johnnie," 
he  said,  calmly.  At  that  every  man 
in  the  car  began  to  choke;  and  the 
Gcfrman,  thinking  the  new  brake- 
msn  was  making  funny  of  him, 
wanted  to  fight.  Now  Bullhead 
would  rather  fight  than  go  to  Sunday- 
school  any  day,  and  without  parley  he 
engaged  the  insulted  homesteader. 
Pat  Francis  parted  them  after  some 
hard  words  on  his  part ;  and  Kenyon, 
the  trainmaster,  gave  Bullhead  three 
months  to  study  up  where  the  water 
cooler  was  located  in  Standard,  A 
pattern,  smoking  cars.  Bullhead's 
own  mother,  who  did  Callahan's 
washing,  refused  to  believe  her  son 
was  so  stupid  as  not  to  know;  but 
Bullhead,  who  now  tells  the  story 
himself,  claims  he  did  not  know. 

When  he  got  back  to  work  he 
tried  the  freight  trains.  They  put 
him  on  the  Number  Twenty-nine, 
local,  and  one  day  they  were  drift- 
ing into  the  yard  at  Goose  River 
Junction  whcfn  there  came  from  the 
cab  a  sharp  call  for  brakes.  Instead 
of  climbing  out  and  grabbing  a 
brakewheel  for  dear  life.  Bullhead 
looked  out  the  window  to  see  what 
the  excitement  was.  By  the  time 
he  had  decided  what  rule  covered 
the  emergency,  his  train  had  driven 
a  stray  flat  half  way  through  the 
eating-house  east  of  the  depot. 
Kenyon,  after  hearing  Bullhead's 
own  candid  statement  of  fact, 
coughed  apologetically  and  said 
three   years;    whereupon    Bullhead 


resigned  permanently  from  the  train 
service  and  applied  for  a  job  in  the 
round-house. 

But  the  round-house — for  a  boy 
like  Bullhead.  It  would  hardly  do. 
He  wtas  put  at  helping  Pete 
Beezer,  the  boiler  washer.  One 
night  Pete  was  snatching  his  cus- 
tomary nap  in  the  pit  when  the  hose 
got  away  from  Bullhead  and  struck 
his  boss.  In  the  confusion,  Peter, 
who  was  nearly  drowned,  lost  a  set 
of  teeth;  that  was  sufficient  in  that 
department  of  the  motive  power; 
Bullhead  moved  on,  suddenly. 
Neighbor  thought  he  might  do  for 
a  wiper.  After  the  boy  had  learned 
something  about  wiping,  he  tried 
one  day  to  back  an  engine  out  on 
the  turn-table  just  to  see  whether 
it  was  easy.  It  was ;  dead  easy ;  but 
the  turn-table  happened  to  be  ar- 
ranged wrong  for  the  experiment; 
and  Neighbor,  before  calling  in  the 
wrecking  gang,  took  occasion  to 
kick  Bullhead  out  of  the  round- 
house bodily.  Nevertheless,  Bull- 
head, like  every  Medicine  Bend  boy, 
wianted  to  railroad.  Some  fellows 
can't  be  shut  oflf.  He  was  offered 
the  presidency  of  a  Cincinnati  bank 
by  a  private  detective  agency  which 
has  just  sent  up  the  active  head  of 
the  institution  for  ten  years ;  but  as 
Bullhead  could  not  arrange  trans- 
portation east  of  the  river,  he  was 
obliged  to  let  the  opportunity  pass. 

When  the  Widow  Lyons  asked 
Callahan  to  put  Jamie  at  telegraph- 
ing, the  assistant  superintendent 
nearly  fell  off  his  chair.  Mrs. 
Lyons,  however,  was  in  earnest,  as 
the  red-haired  man  soon  found  by 
the  way  his  shirts  were  starched. 
Her  son,  meantime,  had  gotten  hold 

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THE   NIGHTMAN^S   STORY 


of  a  sounder,  and  was  studying  te- 
legraphy, corresponding  at  the 
same  time  with  the  Cincinnati  de- 
tective agency  for  the  town  and 
county  rights  to  all  "hidden  and 
undiscovered  crime"  on  the  Moun- 
tain Division — rights  oflfered  at  the 
very  reasonable  price  of  ten  dollars 
by  registered  mail,  bank  draft  or 
express  money  order;  currency  at 
sender's  risk.  The  only  obligations 
imposed  by  this  deal  were  secrecy 
and  a  German  silver  star;  and  Bull- 
head, after  holding  his  trusting 
mother  up  for  ten,  became  a  regu- 
larly installed  detective  with  pro- 
prietary rights  to  local  misdeeds. 
Days  he  plied  his  sounder,  and 
nights  he  lay  awake  trying  to 
mix  up  Pete  Beezer  and  Neighbor 
with  the  disappearance  of  various 
bunches  of  horses  from  the  Bar  M 
ranch. 

About  the  same  time  he  became 
interested  in  dentistry;  not  that 
there  is  any  obvious  connection  be- 
tween railroading  and  detective 
work  and  filling  teeth— but  his 
thoughts  just  turned  that  way,  and 
following  the  advice  of  a  local  den- 
tist, who  didn't  want  altogether  to 
discourage  him,  Bullhead  borrowed 
a  pair  of  forceps  and  pulled  all  the 
teeth  out  of  a  circular  saw  to  get 
his  arm  into  practice.  Before  the 
dentist  pronounced  him  proficient, 
though,  his  mother  had  Callahan 
reduced  to  terms,  and  the  assistant 
superintendent  put  Bullhead  among 
the  operators. 

That  was  a  great  day  for  Bull- 
head. He  had  to  take  the  worst  of 
it,  of  course;  sweeping  the  office 
and  that;  but  whatever  his  faults, 
the  boy  did  as  he  was  told.     Only 


one  vicious  habit  clung  to  him — he 
had  a  passion  for  reading  the  rules. 
In  spite  of  this,  however,  he  stead- 
ily mastered  the  taking,  and  as  for 
sending,  he  could  do  that  before  be 
got  out  of  the  cuspidor  department 
Everybody  around  the  Wickiup 
bullied  him,  and  may  be  that  was 
his  salvation.  He  got  used  to  ex- 
pecting the  worst  of  it,  and  nerved 
himself  to  take  it,  which  in  rail- 
roading is  half  the  battle. 

A  few  months  after  he  became 
competent  to  handle  a  key  the 
nightman  at  Goose  River  Junction 
went  wrong.  When  Callahan  told 
Bullhead  he  thought  of  giving  him 
the  job,  the  boy  went  wild  with 
excitement,  and  in  a  burst  of  confi- 
dence showed  Callahan  his  star.  It 
was  the  best  thing  that  ever  hap- 
pened, for  the  assistant  head  of  the 
division  had  an  impulsive  way  of 
swearing  the  nonsense  out  of  a 
boy's  head,  and  when  Bullhead  con- 
fessed to  being  a  detective,  a  fiery 
stream  was  poured  on  him.  The 
foolishness  couldn't  quite  all  be 
driven  out  in  one  round ;  but  Jamie 
Lyons  went  to  Goose  River  fairly 
well  informed  as  to  how  much  of  a 
fool  he  was. 

Goose  River  Junction  is  not  a 
lively  place.  It  has  been  claimed 
that  even  the  buzzards  at  Goose 
River  Junction  play  solitaire.  But 
apart  from  the  utter  loneliness  it 
was  hard  to  hold  operators  there 
on  account  of  Nellie  Cassidy.  A 
man  rarely  stayed  at  Goose  River 
past  the  second  pay  check.  When 
he  got  money  enough  to  resign,  he 
resigned;  and  all  because  Nellie 
Cassidy  despised  operators. 
The  lunch  counter  that  Matt  Cas- 


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THE  NIGHTMAN'S   STORY 


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sidy,  Nellie's  father,  ran  at  the 
Junction  was  just  an  adjunct  for 
feeding  train  crews,  and  the  few 
miners  who  wandered  down  from 
the  Glencoe  spur.  Matt  himself 
took  the  night  turn,  'but  days  it  was 
Nellie  who  heated  the  Goose  Rivefr 
coflfee  and  dispensed  the  pie — con- 
tract pie  made  at  Medicine  Bend, 
and  sent  by  local  freight  classified 
as  ammunition,  loaded  and  released, 
O.  R. 

It  was  Nellie's  cruelty  that  made 
the  frequent  shifts  at  Goose  River. 
Not  that  she  was  unimpressionable, 
or  had  no  heroes.  She  had  plenty 
of  them  in  the  engine  and  the  train 
service.  It  was  the  smart-uni- 
formed young  conductors  and  ker- 
chiefed juvenile  engineers  on  the 
fast  runs  to  whom  Nellie  paid  def- 
erence, and  for  whom  she  served 
the  preferred  doughnuts. 

But  this  was  nothing  to  Bull- 
head. He  had  his  head  so  full  of 
things  when  he  took  his  new  posi- 
tion that  he  failed  to  observe 
Nellie's  contempt.  He  was  just 
passing  out  of  the  private  detective 
stage;  just  getting  over  dental  be- 
ginnings; just  rising  to  the  respon- 
sibility of  the-  key,  and  a  month  de- 
voted to  his  immediate  work  and 
the  study  of  the  rules  passed  like  a 
limited  train.  Previous  to  the  com- 
ing of  Bullhead,  no  Goose  River 
man  had  tried  study  of  the  rules  as 
a  remedy  for  loneliness;  it  proved 
a  great  scheme;  but  it  aroused  the 
unmeasured  contempt  of  Nellie 
Cassidy.  She  scorned  Bullhead  un- 
speakably, and  her  only  uneasiness 
was  that  he  seemed  unconscious  of  it. 

However,  the  little  Goose  River 
girl  had  no  idea  of  letting  him  es- 


cape that  way.  When  scorn  be- 
came clearly  useless  she  tried  cajol- 
ery— she  smiled  on  Bullhead.  Not 
till  then  did  he  g^ve  up;  her  smile 
was  his  undoing.  It  was  so  abso- 
lutely novel  to  Bullhead — Bullhead, 
who  had  never  got  anything  but 
kicks,  and  curses,  and  frowns.  Be- 
fore Nellie's  smiles,  judiciously  ad- 
ministered. Bullhead  melted  like 
the  sugar  she  began  to  sprinkle  in 
his  coflfee.  That  was  what  she 
wanted;  when  he  was  fairly  dis- 
solved, Nellie,  like  the  coflfee,  went 
gradually  cold.  Bullhead  became 
miserable,  and  to  her  life  at  Goose 
River  was  once  more  endurable. 

It  was  then  that  Bullhead  began 
to  sit  up  all  day,  after  working  all 
night,  to  get  a  single  smile  from  the 
direction  of  the  pie  rack.  He  hung, 
utterly  miserable,  around  the  lunch 
room  all  day,  while  Nellie  made  im- 
personal remarks  about  the  color- 
less life  of  a  mere  operator  as  com- 
pared with  life  in  the  cab  of  a  ten- 
wheeler.  She  admired  the  engineer, 
Nellie — was  there  ever  a  doughnut 
girl  who  didn't?  And  when  One  or 
Two  rose  smoking  out  of  the  alkali 
east  or  the  alkali  west,  and  the  mo- 
gul engine  checked  its  gray  string 
of  sleepers  at  the  Junction  platform, 
and  Bat  Mullen  climbed  down  to  oil 
'round — as  he  always  did — there 
were  the  liveliest  kind  of  heels  be- 
hind the  counter. 

Such  were  the  moments  when 
Bullhead  sat  in  the  lunch  room,  un- 
noticed, somewhat  back  where  the 
flies  were  bad,  and  helped  himself 
aimlessly  to  the  sizzling  maple 
syrup  —  Nellie  rustling  back  and 
forth  for  Engineer  Mullen,  who  ran 
in  for  a  quick  cup,  and  consulted, 


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THE   NIGHTMAN'S   STORY 


after  each  swallow,  a  dazzling- 
open-faced  gold  watch,  thin  as  a 
double  eagle ;  for  Bat  at  twenty-one 
was  pulling  the  fast  trains  and  car- 
ried the  best.  And  with  Bullhead 
feeding  on  flannel  cakes  and  de- 
spair, and  Nellie  Cassidy  looking 
quite  her  smartest,  Mullen  would 
drink  his  coffee  in  an  impassive 
rush,  never  even  glancing  Bull- 
head's way — ^absolutdy  ignoring 
Bullhead.  What  wsts  he  but  a 
nightman,  anyivay?  Then  Mullen 
would  take  as  much  as  a  minute  of 
his  running  time  to  walk  forward 
to  the  engine  with  Miss  Cassidy 
and  stand  in  the  lee  of  the  drivers 
chatting  with  her,  while  Bullhead 
went  completely  frantic. 

It  was  being  ignored  in  that  way, 
after  her  smiles  had  once  been  his, 
that  crushed  the  night  operator.  It 
filled  his  head  with  schemes  for  ob- 
taining recognition  at  all  hazards. 
He  began  by  quarrelling  violcfntly 
with  Nellie,  and  things  were  com- 
ing to  a  serious  pass  around  the 
depot  when  the  Klondike  business 
struck  the  Mountain  Division.-  It 
came  with  a  rush  and  wfhen  they 
began  running  through  freight  €fx- 
tras  by  way  of  the  Goose  River 
short  line,  day  and  night,  the  Junc- 
tion station  caught  the  thick  of  it. 
It  was  something  new  altogether 
for  the  short  line  rails  and  the  short 
line  operators,  and  Bullhead's  night 
trick,  with  nothing  to  do  but  poke 
the  fire  and  pop  at  coyotes,  became 
straightway  a  'busy  and  important 
post.  The  added  work  kept  him 
jumping  from  sundown  till  dawn, 
and  kept  him  from  loafing  daytimes 
around  the  lunch  counter  and  ruin- 
ing himself  on»  fermented  syrup. 


On  a  certain  night,  windier  than 
all  the  November  nights  that  had 
gone  before,  the  night  operator  sat 
alone  in  the  office  facing  a  resolve. 
Goose  River  had  become  intolerable. 
Medicine  Bend  was  not  to  be 
thought  of,  for  -Bullhead  now  had  a 
suspicion,  due  to  Callahan,  that  he 
was  a  good  deal  of  a  chump,  and  he 
wanted  to  get  away  from  the  ridi- 
cule that  had  always  and  every- 
where made  life  a  burden.  There 
appeared  to  Bullhead  nothing  for  it 
but  the  Klondike.  On  the  table  be- 
fore the  moody  operator  lay  his  let- 
ter of  resignation,  addressed  in  due 
form  to  J.  S.  Bucks,  superintendent 
Near  it,  under  the  lamp,  lay  a  well- 
thumbed  copy  of  the  book  of  rules, 
opcfn  at  the  chapter  on  Resigna- 
tions, with  subheads  on — 

Resign,  who  should. 

Resign,  how  to. 

Resign,  when  to.  (See  also 
Time.) 

The  fact  was  it  had  at  last  pain- 
fully forced  itself  on  Bullhead  that 
he  was  not  fitted  for  the  railroad 
business.  Pat  Francis  had  unfeel- 
ingly told  him  so.  Callahan  had 
told  him  so;  Neighbor  had  told  him 
so ;  Bucks  had  told  him  so.  On  that 
point  the  lefading  West  End  author- 
ities were  agreed.  Yet  in  spite  of 
these  discouragements  he  had  per- 
sisted and  at  last  made  a  show. 
Who  was  it  now  that  had  shaken 
his  stubborn  conviction?  Bullhead 
hardly  dared  confess.  But  it  was 
undoubtedly  one  who  put  up  to  be 
no  authority  whatever  on  Motive 
or  Train  Service  or  Operating — it 
was  Matt  Cassidy's  girl. 

While  he  reread  his  formal  letter 
and  compared  on  spelling  with  his 


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pocket  Webster,  a  train  whistled. 
Bullhead  lookcfd  at  the  clock: 
11^  P.  M.  It  was  the  local  freight, 
Thirty,  coming  in  from  the  West, 
working  back  to  Medicine.  From 
the  East,  Number  One  had  not  ar- 
rived; she  was  six  hours  late,  and 
Bullhead  looked  out  at  his  light,  for 
he  had  orders  for  the  freight.  It 
was  not  oftcfn  that  such  a  thing 
happened,  because  One  rarely  went 
oflF  schedule  badly  enough  to  throw 
her  into  his  turn.  He  had  his  or- 
ders copied  and  O.  K.'d,  and  waited 
only  to  deliver  them. 

It  was  fearfully  windy.  Thcf  266 
engine,  pulling  Thirty  that  night, 
wheezed  in  the  g^le  like  a  man  with 
the  apoplexy.  She  had  a  new  fire- 
man on,  who  was  burning  the  lifcf 
out  of  her,  and  as  she  puflfed  pain- 
fully dowti  on  the  scrap  rails  of  the 
first  siding  and  took  the  Y,  her 
overloaded  safety  gasped  violently. 

When  the  conductor  of  the  Num- 
ber Thirty  train  opened  thcf  station 
door,  the  wind  followed  him  like  a 
catamount.  The  stove  puffed  open 
with  a  down  draft,  and  shot  the 
room  full  of  stinging  smoke.  The 
lamp  blaze  flew  up  the  chimney — 
out — ^and  left  the  nightman  and  thcf 
conductor  in  darkness.  The  train- 
man with  a  swear  shoved  to  the 
door,  and  Bullhead,  the  patient, 
turned  over  his  letter  of  resignation 
quick  in  the  dark,  felt  for  a  match 
and  relighted  his  lamp.  Swcfaring 
again  at  Bullhead,  the  freight  con- 
ductor swaggered  over  to  his  table, 
felt  in  all  the  operator's  pockets  for 
a  cigar,  tumblefd  all  the  papers 
around,  and  once  more,  on  general 
principles,  swore. 

^Mllhead  took  things  uncomplain- 


ingly, but  he  watched  close,  and 
was  determined  to  fight  if  the  brute 
discovered  his  letter  of  resi^ation. 
Whcfn  the  trainman  could  think  of 
no  further  indignities  he  took  his 
orders,  to  meet  Number  One  at 
Sackley,  the  second  station  east  of 
Goose  River.  After  he  had  sigrned, 
Bullhead  asked  him  about  the  dcfpot 
fire  at  Bear  Dance,  that  had  been 
going  over  the  wires  for  two  hours, 
reminded  him  of  the  slow  order  for 
the  number  nine  culvert,  and  as  the 
rudef  visitor  slammed  the  door  be- 
hind him,  held  his  hand  over  the 
lamp.  Then  he  sat  down  again  and 
turned  over  his  letter  of  resigna- 
tion. 

To  make  it  binding,  it  lacked 
only  his  signature — ^James  Gillespie 
Blaine  Lyons — now  himself  of  the 
opinion  of  every  one  else  on  the 
West  End:  that  he  was  just  a  natu- 
ral-bom, blooming  fool.  He  lifted 
his  pen  to  sign  off  the  aspirations  of 
a  young  lifetime  when  the  sounder 
began  to  snap  and  sputter  his  call. 
It  was  the  despatcher,  and  he  asked 
hurriedly  if  Numbcfr  Thirty  was 
there. 

"Number  Thirty  is  on  the  Y," 
answered   Bullhead. 

Then  came  a  train  order.  "Hold 
Number  Thirty  till  Number  One 
arrives." 

Bullhead  repeated  the  ordcfr,  and 
got  back  the  O.  K.  He  grabbed 
his  hat  and  hurried  out  of  the  door 
to  deliver  the  new  order  to  the  local 
freight  before  it  should  pull  out. 

To  reach  thcf  train  Bullhead  had 
to  cross  the  short  line  tracks.  The 
wind  was  scouring  the  flats,  and  as 
he  tacked  up  the  platform,  the  dust 
swept  dead  into  him.  At  the  switch 


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THE   NIGHTMAN'S   STORY 


he  sprang  across  the  rails,  thinking 
of  nothing  but  reaching  the  engine 
cab  of  the  local — forgetting  about 
thtf  track  he  was  crossing.  Before 
he  could  think,  or  see,  or  jump,  a 
through  freight  on  the  short  line, 
wild,  from  the  West,  storming 
down  the  grade  behind  him,  struck 
Bullhead  as  a  grizzly  would  a  gnat 
— hurled  him,  doubling,  fifty  feet 
out  on  the  spur — and  stormed  on 
into  the  East  without  a  quiver  out 
of  the  ordinary.  The?  engineer  of 
the  short  line  train  did  not  see  the 
man  he  had  hit,  and  with  the  night- 
man lying  unconscious  in  the  ditch, 
the  local  freight  pulled  out  for 
Sackley. 

Bullhead  never  knew  just  how 
long,  he  lay  under  the  stars.  Whcm 
his  head  began  to  whirl  the  wind 
was  blowing  cool  and  strong  on 
him,  and  the  alkali  dust  was  eddy- 
ing into  his  open  mouth.  It  was 
only  a  matter  of  seconds,  though  it 
seemed  hours,  to  pull  himself  to- 
gether and  to  put  up  his  hand  un- 
steadily to  feel  what  it  was  soaking 
warm  and  sticky  into  his  hair;  then 
to  realize  that  he  had  been  struck 
by  a  short  line  train;  to  think  of 
what  a  failure  he  had  lately  ac- 
knowledged himself  to  be;  and  of 
what  it  was  he  was  clutching  so 
tightly  in  his  right  hand — the  hold- 
ing order  for  Number  Thirty.  He 
raised  his  reding  head;  there  was 
a  drift  of  starlight  through  the  dust 
cloud,  but  no  train  in  sight;  Num- 
ber Thirty  was  gone.  With  that 
consciousness  ca'me  a  recollection 
— he  had  forgotten  to  put  out  his 
red  light. 

His  red  lightwasn't  out'.  He  kept 
repeating  that  to  himself  to  put  the 


picture  of  what  it  meant  before 
him.  He  had  started  to  deliver  an 
order  without  putting  out  his  light, 
and  Number  Thirty  Was  gone: 
against  Number  One — a  head  end 
collision  staring  the  freight  and  the 
belatcKl  passenger  in  the  face. 
Number  Thirty,  running  hard  on 
her  order  to  make  Sackley  for  the 
meeting,  and  One,  running  furi- 
ously, as  she  always  ran — ^to-night 
worse  than  ever. 

He  lifted  his  head,  enraged  with 
himsdf;  enraged.  He  thought 
about  the  rules,  and  he  grew  en- 
raged. Only  himself  he  blamed, 
nobody  else — studying  the  rules  for 
a  lifetime  and  just  when  it  would 
mean  the  death  of  a  trainload  of 
pcfople  forgetting  his  red  signal. 
He  lifted  his  head;  it  was  sick, 
deadly  sick.  But  up  it  must  ccwne. 
Thirty  gone,  and  it  wabbled, 
swooning  sick  and  groggy  as  he 
stared  around  and  tried  to  locate 
himself.  One  thing  he  could  see, 
the  faint  outline  of  the  station  and 
his  lamp  blazing  smoky  in  the  win- 
dow. Bullhead  figured  a  second: 
then  he  began  to  crawl.  If  he  could 
reach  the  lamp  before  his  head 
went  oflf  again,  before  he  went  com- 
pletely silly,  hcf  might  yet  save  him- 
self and  Number  One. 

It  wasn't  in  him  to  crawl  till  he 
thought  of  his  own  mistake;  but 
there  was  a  spur  in  the  sweep  of 
that  through  his  head.  His  brain, 
he  knew,  was  wabbling,  but  he 
could  crawl;  and  he  stuck,  fainting, 
to  that  one  idcfa,  and  crawled  for 
the  light  of  his  lamp. 

It  is  a  bare  hundred  feet  across 
to  the  Y.  Bullhead  taped  every 
foot   of   the    hundred    with    blood. 


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There  was  no  one  to  call  on  for 
help;  he  just  stuck  to  thef  crawl, 
grinding  his  teeth  in  bitter  self-re- 
proach. They  traced  him,  next 
morning,  when  he  was  past  telling 
of  it,  and  his  struggle  looked  the 
track  of  a  wounded  bear.  Dragging 
along  ontf  crushed  leg,  and  half 
crazed  by  the  crack  on  his  forehead, 
Bullhead  climbed  to  the  platform, 
across,  and  dragged  himself  to  the 
door.  He  can  tell  yet  about  rolling 
his  broken  leg  under  him  and  raising 
himself  to  grasp  the  thumb  latch. 
Not  until  hcf  tried  to  open  it  did  he 
remember  it  was  a  spring  lock  and 
that  he  was  outside.  He  felt  in  his 
pocket  for  his  keys — but  his  keys 
were  gone. 

There  were  no  rules  to  consult 
thcfn.  No  way  on  earth  of  getting 
into  the  office  in  time  to  do  any- 
thing; to  drag  himself  to  the  lunch 
room,  twice  farther  than  the  sta- 
tion, was  out  of  the  question.  But 
there  was  a  way  to  reach  his  key  in 
spite  of  all  bad  things,  and  Bullhead 
knew  the  way.  He  struggled  fast 
around  to  the  window.  Raising 
himself  with  a  frightful  twinge  on 
one  knee,  he  beat  at  the  glass  with 
his  fist.  Clutching  the  sash,  he 
drew  himself  up  with  a  hand,  and 
with  the  other  tore  away  the 
muntin,  stuck  his  head  and  shoul- 
ders through  the  opening,  got  his 
hand  on  the  key,  and  called  for  the 
first  station  east.  Blaisdell,  with 
the  19.  Life  and  death  that  call 
meant;  the  19,  the  despatcher's  call 
— hanging  over  the  key,  stammer- 
ing the  19  over  the  wire,  and  bap- 
tizing the  call  in  his  own  blood — 
that  is  the  way  Bullhead  learned  to 
be  a  railroaxl  n^an. 


For  Blaisdell  got  him  and  his 
warning,  and  had  Number  One  on 
the  siding,  just  as  the  freight  tore 
around  the  west  curve,  headed  for 
Sackley.  While  it  was  all  going 
on,  Bullhead  lay  on  the  wind-swept 
platform  at  Goose  River  with  a  hole 
in  his  head  that  would  have  killed 
anybody  on  the  West  End,  or,  for 
that  matter,  on  earth,  except  James 
Gillespie  Blaine  Lyons. 

After  Number  Thirty  had  passed 
so  impudently.  Number  One  felt 
her  way  rather  cautiously  to  Goose 
River,  because  the  despatchers 
couldn't  get  the  blamed  station. 
They  decided,  of  course,  that  Bull- 
head was  asleep,  and  fixed  every- 
thing at  the  Wickiup  to  send  a  new 
man  up  there  on  Three  in  the  morn- 
ing and  fire  him  for  good. 

But  about  one  o'clock  Number 
One  rolled,  bat-tempered,  into 
Goose  River  Junction,  and  Bat 
Mullen,  stopping  his  train,  strode 
angrily  to  the  station.  It  was  dark 
as  a  pocket  inside.  Bat  smashed  in 
the  door  with  his  heel,  and  the 
trainmen  swarmed  in  and  began 
looking  with  their  lanterns  for  the 
nightman.  The  stove  was  red-hot, 
but  he  was  not  asleep  in  the  arm- 
chair, nor  napping  under  the  coun- 
ter on  the  supplies.  They  turned  to 
his  table  and  discovered  the  broken 
window,  and  thought  of  a  hold-up. 
They  saw  where  the  nightman  had 
spilled  something  that  looked  like 
ink  over  the  table,  over  the  order 
book,  over  the  clip,  and  there  was  a 
hand  print  that  looked  inky  on  an 
open  letter  addressed  to  the  super- 
intendent— and  a  little  pool  of 
something  like  ink  under  the  key. 

Somebody  said  suicide;  but  Bat 


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THE   NIGHTMAN'S   STORY 


Mullen  suddenly  stuck  his  lamp  out 
of  the  broken  window,  put  his  head 
through  after  it,  and  cried  out.  Set- 
ting his  lantern  down  on  the  plat- 
form, he  crawled  through  the 
broken  sash  and  picked  up  Bull- 
head. 

Next  morning  it  was  all  over  thtf 
West  End. 

"And  Bullhead!"  cried  every- 
body.  "That's  what  gets  me. 
Who'd  have  thought  it  of  BuUheadr 

When  they  all  got  up  there  and 
saw  what  Bullhead  had  done, 
everybody  agreed  that  nobody  but 
Bullhead  could  have  done  it. 

The  pilot  bar  of  the  short  line 
mogul,  in  swiping  Bullhead  unmer- 
cifully, had  really  made  a  railroad 
man  of  him.  It  had  let  a  great  light 
in  on  the  situation.  Whereas  be- 
fore every  one  else  on  the  line  had 
been  to  blame  for  his  failures,  Bull- 
head now  saw  that  he  himself  had 
been  to  blame,  and  was  man  enough 
to  stand  up  and  say  so.  When  the 
big  fcfllows,  Callahan,  and  Kenyon, 
and  Pat  Francis,  saw  his  trail  next 
morning,  saw  the  blood  smeared 
over  the  table,  and  saw  Bullhead's 
letter  of  resignation  signed  in  his 
own  blood  manual,  and  heard  his 
straight-out  story  days  afterward, 
they  said  never  a  word. 

But  that  morning,  the  morning 
after,  Callahan  picked  up  thcf  letter 
and  put  it  just  as  it  was  between 
the  leaves  of  the  order  book  and 
locked  both  in  his  grip.  It  was 
some  weeks  before  he  had  a  talk 
with  Bullhead,  and  he  spoke  thcfn 
only    a    few    words,    because    the 


nightman  fainted  before  he  got 
through.  Callahan  made  him 
understand,  though,  that  as  soon  as 
he  was  able,  he  could  have  any  key 
on  that  division  he  wanted  as  long 
as  he  was  running  it — and  Callahan 
is  running  that  division  yrt. 

It  all  canve  easy  after  he  got  well. 
Instead  of  getting  the  worst  of  it 
from  everybody.  Bullhead  began  to 
get  the  best  of  it,  evcfn  from  pretty 
Nellie  Cassidy.  But  Nellie  had 
missed  her  opening.  She  tried  ten- 
derness while  the  boy  was  being 
nursed  at  the  Junction.  Bullhead 
looked  grim  and  far-oflf  through  his 
bulging  bandages,  and  asked  his 
mother  to  put  the  sugar  in  his 
coflfee  for  him;  Bullhead  was  get- 
ting sense. 

Besides,  what  need  has  a  young 
man  with  a  heavy  crescent-shaped 
scar  on  his  forehcjad  that  people  in- 
quire about,  and  who  within  a  year 
after  the  Goose  River  affair,  was 
made  a  train  despatcher  under 
Barnes  Tracy  at  Medicine  Bend — 
what  need  has  he  of  a  coquette's 
smiles?  His  mother,  who  has  hon- 
orably retired  from  hard  work,  says 
half  the  girls  at  the  Bend  are  after 
him,  and  his  mother  ought  to  know, 
for  she  keeps  house  for  him. 

Bullhead's  letter  of  resignation, 
with  the  print  of  his  hand  on  it, 
hangs  framed  over  Callahan's  desk, 
and  is  shown  to  railroad  big  fdlows 
who  are  accorded  the  courtesies  of 
the  Wickiup.  But  when  they  ask 
Bullhead  about  it,,  he  just  laughs 
and  says  some  railroad  men  have  to 
have  sense  pounded  into  them. 


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A  Greyhound  of  the  Sea 


By  C.  Z.  Hartman 


H 


EAVE  tor 

The  big  dun  bulk  of  the 
liner,  "American  Osprey," 
swung  heavily  around  to 
starboard,  pitching  in  chafed  sullen 
restraint  in  the  trough  of  the  sea. 
A  dozen  bluff  voices  from  helm,  deck 
and  bridge  penetrated  the  semi-dark- 
ness of  fog,  a  dozen  heads  were  craned 
eagerly  over  the  rails,  marking  with 
critical  eye  the  hazardous  transition 
of  the  pilot  from  heaving  canoe  to 
equally  unsteady  steamer. 

When,  at  length,  the  stalwart  fellow, 
by  a  daring  acrobatic  feat,  gained  the 
first  round  of  the  rope-ladder,  a  lusty 
cheer  rang  out  from  above.  Even 
they  who  manned  the  sturdy  canoe 
could  hear  as  they  pulled  back  to  the 
pilot  boat,  the  general  rush  from 
hatchway  and  port  to  greet  the  new- 
comer. As  he  rapidly  mounted  to  the 
main  deck  and  vaulted  the  rail,  shak- 
ing his  great  oilskins  free  of  drops 
gleaned  from  some  wayward  roller, 
mariners  and  officials  crowded  about, 
hatchways  belched  forth  their  quota 
of  interested  passengers, — all  pressed 
forward  to  hear  any  news,  however 
general,  from  the  dear  home  shores. 

Mindful  of  a  goodly  sprinkling  of 
ulstered  women  among  his  listeners 
the  big  fellow  doffed  his  rubber  helmet 
and  good-humoredly  delivered  his 
budget  of  American  news,  his  eyes 
wandering  observantly  around  the  cir- 
cle of  faces.  Once  they  happened  to 
alight  for  an  instant,  the  next — the 
helmet  was  suddenly  clapped  over  a 


pair  of  startled  eyes,  and  with  an 
abrupt  nod  and  wave  to  his  auditors, 
he  turned  on  his  heel,  and  repaired  at 
once  to  the  bridge. 

"Yes,  yes !  It  can't  be  a  delusion ! 
Wonder  if  she  recognized  me? 
Heavens  I"  he  mused,  much  disquieted 
inwardly,  while  he  chatted  dutifully 
with  captain  and  line-agent. 

Having  completed  the  regulation 
tour  of  inspection  of  the  liner  and  her 
superb  sailing  appointments — ^for  the 
"Osprey"  was  the  darling  of  the  line — 
he  proceeded  to  the  wheel,  armed  with 
tackle  and  chart.  Here  the  sterner 
duty  of  directing  the  course  of  an 
Atlantic  greyhound,  through  the  in- 
strumentality of  the  respectful  steers- 
man, pressed  from  his  mind,  for  a 
time,  a  train  of  intruding  thoughts, 
bitter  as  gall. 

Far  away  came  the  wierd  challenge 
of  some  storm-bird,  the  shout  of  the 
port  watch  pierced  the  low-brooding 
fog  with  its  stentorian,  "Eight  bells, 
and  all's  well."  To  pile  up  the  gloom, 
a  cold,  slow-dripping  rain  set  in,  with 
exasperating  persistence,  in  conse- 
quence of  which  the  majority  of  pas- 
sengers had  drifted,  shivering,  below, 
where  warm  stateroom  and  luxurious 
parlor  offered  the  ease  of  a  Sybarite 
in  exchange  for  the  dreary  outer  dis- 
comfort. 

The  militant  figure  of  the  i>ilot, 
hitherto  conspicuous  in  different  parts 
of  the  vessel  giving  crisp  orders  to  the 
men  in  the  forechains,  now  leaned  pas- 
sively against  the  rail,  an  image  in 

749 


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A   GREYHOUND   OF   THE  SEA 


granite,  gazing  out  to  sea.  In  spite  of 
his  indolent  attitude,  there  was  still 
that  aggressive  poise  of  the  head 
which  spells  activity,  that  generous 
breadth  of  shoulder  which  somehow 
ever  associates  itself  with  the  idea  of 
strength.  So  thought  the  girl  in  the 
ash-colored  raincoat  and  breezy  yacht- 
ing cap,  as  she  hesitated  in  the  shadow 
of  the  deck  house,  advancing  a  step 
from  time  to  time,  her  eyes  ever  fixed 
in  alert  eagerness  on  the  immovable 
one. 

"Eh  ?"  said  he  of  the  oilskin  vaguely, 
swinging  about  at  the  light  touch 
on  his  arm. 

"Rex  I  My  blessed  King  Stanilaus, 
I  thought  it  was  you !" 

The  unmistakable  pleasure  of  the 
tones  found  no  sympathetic  echo  in 
his  stiffening  manner,  notwithstand- 
ing the  bright  face  and  outstretched 
hands.  He  floundered  in  a  sorry  at- 
tempt at  formal  ease. 

"I  hardly  expected  to — to  see  you — 
here — Miss  Carew — " 

"Miss  Carew!"  The  hands  dropped 
in  dismay.  "King,  this  is  really 
too  bad  of  you  I  To  call  me  Miss 
Carew, — me,  who,  in  our  strenuous 
infancy,  used  to  shut  my  eyes  and 
bait  your  fish  hooks!  I  can't  believe 
you've  dropped  the  old  familiar  'Iris.' 
Is  three  years,  then,  so  long  a  time? 
Come,  sir,  no  more  of  Miss  Carew  to 
the  Rainbow  Girl !"  she  finished  auto- 
cratically, but  with  a  somewhat  tremu- 
lous little  smile. 

Stanilaus,  quite  disarmed  by  her 
appealing  frankness,  capitulated  at 
once  and  caught  penitently  at  the  ig- 
nored hand. 

"Forgive  me.  Iris.  You  know  I 
couldn't  forget  you.  But  I  thought — 
I  thought — that  after  that  night  when 


you — So  much  happens  in  three 
years — " 

He  broke  off  abruptly,  a  hard  ten- 
sion in  his  blue  eyes.  When  his 
glance  wandered  back  to  her,  she  was 
conscious  of  a  new  note — z,  heartier 
one — in  his  voice. 

"It's  the  same  old  Rainbow  Girl!" 
was  his  grave  verdict,  as  he  bent  to 
scrutinize  the  charming  face.  "A  lit- 
tle sunnier,  a  little  franker,  a  thousand 
times  lovelier,  than  of  old,  but  not  a 
whit  changed  for  all  her  foreign 
polish." 

Iris  laughed  gaily, — b,  sweet  bird 
note  that  went  tingling  strangely 
through  his  sensibilities.  Not  that  he 
had  forgotten  how  Iris  Carew  could 
laugh.  It  was,  perhaps,  the  sudden 
realization  that  he  had  not  forgotten 
and  a  completer  awakening  to  the 
reality  of  her  presence. 

"But  it  isn't  the  same  Rex!"  she 
teased.  "Why,  the  King  of  the  old 
days  stood  at  the  head  of  all  beaudom, 
and  was  far  more  at  home  in  veiling 
a  delicate  compliment  than  piloting 
a  liner  into  Boston  harbor !  No,  no," 
with  a  sudden  transition  to  earnest- 
ness, "there's  been  a  change  and  one 
that  I'm  glad  to  see.  I  could  tell  it 
the  moment  you  stepped  aboard!" 

"You  knew  me  then !"  chagrined. 

"Of  course,  you  ridiculous  boy!" 
cried  Miss  Carew  delightedly.  "Your 
voice  first  caught  me,  then  when  you 
pulled  off  that  disreputable  old  hat, 
with  a  grace  that  Newport  was  never 
able  to  rival,  I  knew  you  in  a  minute ! 
Fraud!  you  clapped  it  on  like  a  flash 
when  you  saw  me, — no,  no,  don't  try 
to  deny  it,  sir,  you  know  you  did! 
I've  been  here,"  exultingly,  "for  the 
last  hour,  staring  at  your  exceedingly 
becoming    Yale     shoulders — broader 


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A   GREYHOUND   OF   THE   SEA 


751 


than  ever! — ^and  wondering  why  the 
flawless  King  Stanilaus  should  cut  the 
poor  little  Rainbow  Girl !" 

All  the  satisfaction  she  got  for  her 
plaint  was  an  anxious,  "You're  getting 
so  wet.  Iris,  and  the  weather  outlook 
is  squally.  See,  the  rest  have  gone 
below.    Hadn't  you  better,  too?" 

*'Oh,  dear  me,  no !  I  like  to  be  wet ! 
Why,  it  was  this  way  the  whole  time  in 
London,  and  think  of  the  yachting- 
jaunts  of  the  old  days  when  you  and 
I—" 

"So  you  were  in  London?"  hastily. 
"The  continent  then  didn't  monopolize 
you  entirely.  I  suppose  you  have  been 
the  gayest  of  the  gay  for  the  last  three 
years  ?" 

"Um-m,  perhaps,"  with  a  dubious 
shake  that  set  adrift  several  wayward 
tendrils  from  under  the  tilting  cap, 
"but  taken  altogether,  it  was  just  all- 
round  stupid.  Paris — Florence — Lu- 
cerne Lakes  —  Moscow  —  Calcutta  — 
bahl  Same  beaten  track  of  the  tire- 
some old  g^ide-book — you  know  itl 
Of  course,  it  was  exciting  enough,  at 
the  time,  but  oh,  we  are  so  glad  to  get 
back  to  America,  papa  and  I.  Dear 
old  Boston,  I  wonder  if  it's  changed 
any!"  She  peered  dreamily  through 
the  mists  as  though  seeking  a  prema- 
ture glimpse  of  that  beloved  place,  a 
thousand  times  dearer  in  its  compar- 
ison with  other  lands. 

"Boston  you  will  find  much  the 
same,"  returned  Stanilaus  slowly,  his 
forehead  contracting  with  pain.  "I — 
I  haven't  seen  beyond  its  wharves  for 
the  last  six  months,  so  I  cannot  say 
with  certainty — " 

Miss  Carew  clapped  her  hands  en- 
couragingly. "Go  on,  tell  me  all  about 
yourself,  that's  a  darling  child.  Not 
one  line  did  I  get  from  you,"  reproach- 


fully, "so  now  you  must  make  it  up 
to  me." 

"Myself !"  with  a  savage  laugh,  "an 
inspiring  subject!  Do  you  expect  to 
be  thrilled.  Iris,  by  the  story  of  such 
a  deadweight  failure  as  I  am — " 

"Rex!" 

He  glanced  up  quickly,  his  own  eyes 
losing  a  little  of  their  steely  cynicism 
as  they  met  her  look  of  pain.  Turn- 
ing away,  he  resumed  unsteadily : 

"It — it's  something  of  a  change, 
isn't  it.  Iris,  from  the  steam,  yacht. 
Sea  Island  and  all, — to  this?" 

"The  dear,  dear  little  'Whirlwind' !" 
murmured  Iris,  regretfully.  "But  for 
all  that,  I  like  this  better,'*  rearing  her 
dauntless  head.  "On  the  yacht  we 
romped  like  a  lot  of  foolish  children, 
but  this  is  a  man's  work,  worth  the 
doing,  for  it  calls  for  brawn  and 
steady  nerves,  and  ability  and  cour- 
age. One  must  be  worth  something,  if 
he  can  do  this  splendid  work  and  do 
it  well.  I  tell  you.  King,  I'm  proud  of 
you,  for  rising  so  nobly  above  pink- 
teadoml" 

Her  voice  rose  excitedly  with  the 
flush  on  her  cheek  and  the  sparkle 
in  her  eye. 

"Over  the  wreck  of  pink-teadom, 
you  mean."  Stanilaus  laughed  in  spite 
of  himself,  to  cover  the  deep  inward 
glow  her  words  kindled.  "I  little 
thought  that  my  cruising  around  in 
these  waters  with  my  dainty  'Whirl- 
wind' till  I  knew  every  rock  and  head- 
land by  heart,  was  to  prepare  the  way 
for  handling  ocean  greyhounds,  when 
Fortune  turned  fickle.  I've  always 
loved  the  sea,  so  when  I  found  myself 
up  against  the  bread-and-butter  issue, 
I  turned  at  once  to  old  Father  Nep- 
tune. Iris!"  squaring  about  with  a 
sudden  impulse,  "Do  you  remember 


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A  GkEYHOuND  OP  THE  SEA 


what  you — ^said  to  me — the  evening 
before  you — sailed?" 

"Never  mind  that,"  Miss  Carew 
spoke  quickly,  avoiding  his  steady 
look.  "It  was  horrid  of  mel  For- 
get-" 

"I  would  not  forget  if  I  cx^uld!"  in 
a  tone  of  bitter  reminiscence.  "A 
month  from  that  night  came  the  crash, 
and  on  the  heels  of  it  father's  stroke, 
and — ^you  heard?" 

"Just  the  barest  facts,"  she  con- 
fessed eagerly.  "The  failure,  your 
father's  illness  and  the  news  of  your 
seafaring.  We  were  in  Mtmich  at  the 
time." 

"Such  things  travel  far.  Well,  dur- 
ing those  months,  I  had  good  reason 
to  recall  your  deserved  rebuke.  Cut 
loose  from  my  moorings,  with  poor 
old  dad  on  my  conscience,  it  came  like 
an  invigorating,  if  bitter,  tonic. 
Others  had  pretended  to  lecture  me 
on  my  worthlessness — pretty,  prattling 
creatures  with  heavenly  eyes  and  no 
intellect  to  speak  of — ^you  know  the 
breed, —  and  I  had  laughed  them  aside 
and  dawdled  worse  than  ever.  But 
the  Rainbow  Girl — bless  her  heart! — 
struck  right  at  the  root  of  the  disor- 
der, in  her  own  fearless,  wholesome 
way,  probing  my  conscience  and  con- 
ceit in  masterly  style.  No,  no.  Iris, 
don't  reproach  yourself.  Rather,  con- 
gratulate yourself  that  your  cure  was 
so  effective  and  that  your  no-account 
chum  is  trying  to  become  something 
more  than  an  'el^ant  noodle'  and  a 
'leader  of  toy  cotillions'!" 

"Wretched  boy!"  chafed  Miss 
Carew,  divided  between  tears  and 
vexed  laughter.  "Why  do  you  persist 
in  quoting  my  rude  words?  Oh,  I 
daresay  I  said  some  perfectly  abom- 
inable things  that  night,   for   I   had 


quite  lost  patience  with  you.  And  to 
think  that  the  very  next  time  we  met, 
it  should  be  aboard  a  liner  where  you 
were  doing  this  grand,  useful  work! 
It  makes  me  happier  than  anything 
else  in  the  world !" 

The  piercing  glance  he  threw  her 
was  sufficiently  puzzling  in  its  skep- 
ticism, but  she  appeared  not  to  see  it. 
Her  bright  eyes  were  roving  beyond 
him  to  a  tall  woman  approaching  them 
from  the  main  hatchway. 

"There's  Auntie!  Look,  Rex,  the 
one  with  the  empress  air  and  Doucet 
cloak!  And  von  Krell,  of  course, 
toddling  along  in  her  wake.  You  must 
meet  them,  King — ^you'll  like  Baron 
von  Krell  immensely.  Good!  they're 
coming  this  way  1" 

Stanilaus  clutched  at  the  rail,  the 
bronze  fading  from  his  cheek.  Oh, 
what  was  it  that  laid  a  paralysis  on 
the  hand  he  would  have  outstretched 
to  stop  her? 

"Von  Krell!  Oh,  good  God!  not 
that — ^not  von  Krell,  Iris !  Spare  me 
that!" 

But  she  had  flitted  away  deaf  to 
his  agonized  protest,  so  he  squared 
his  shoulders  desperately,  bracing 
himself  for  the  blow.  He  would  take 
it  with  good  grace,  for  she  must  never 
know  how  cruel  a  stab  she  adminis- 
tered. 

It  was  her  voice  that  dispelled  the 
miserable  revery. 

"Aunt  Iris,  this  is  my  old  friend, 
Mr.  Stanilaus.  Known  each  other 
ever  since  the  Dark  Ages.  My  aunt. 
Miss  Carew,  Rex,  likewise,  and  also 
Baron  von  Krell,  on  his  first  visit  to 
America." 

As  in  a  trance,  he  went  through  the 
motions  of  acknowledging  this  char- 
acteristic   introduction,    mechanically 


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A  GREYHOUND  OF  THE  SEA 


;53 


conscious  the  while  that  Miss  Carew, 
Sr.,  was  the  most  royally  brilliant  wo- 
man he  had  ever  met,  and  the  big 
German  the  ruddiest  of  his  kind, — 
meantime  rating  himself  furiously  for 
such  triviality  of  observation. 

"You're  a  very  fortunate  man. 
Baron,"  he  heard  himself  saying. 
"Yes,  the  news  of  your  engagement 
to  Miss  Carew  flew  across  the  Atlantic 
first  thing.  My  dear  sir,  you  will  have 
the  most  charming  Baroness — " 

And  so  on, — oh,  what  unutterably 
dreary  rot  it  was!  Congratulate  her? 
— his  Rainbow  Girl,  what  a  farce  I  A 
thousand  times,  no!  His  nerve  was 
beginning  to  fail.  Oh,  why  didn't  they 
go? 

The  mist  before  his  eyes  cleared 
away  and  there  was  only  Iris  standing 
before  him,  with  folded  hands. 

He  essayed  a  feeble  commonplace. 

"I  didn't  know  you  had  a  handsome 
young  aunt — " 

"Of  course  you  didn't,  although  I'm 
her  namesake.  She's  made  her  home 
abroad  for  the  last  ten  years,  and  only 
condescends  to  retdm  to  her  old  home 
to  be  married.  I  must  say,"  elevating 
a  scornful  little  nose,  "that  for  a 
knightly  Stanilaus,  you  didn't  treat 
her  very  prettily!  You  might  have 
had  the  decency  to  felicitate  her  on 
her  Baron!" 

"Her — !  Iris,  Iris,  what  are  you 
saying?  Do  you  mean  you're  not  en- 
gaged to  von  Krell?"  vibrating 
breathless,  between  hope  and  despair. 

There  was  an  electric  pause,  broken 
only  by  the  swirl  of  water  plowed  up 
by  the  liner's  bow.  Then  the  light 
of  revelation  leaped  into  the  girl's 
face;  her  mouth  twitched,  and  small 
twinkles  of  mischief  spilled  from  her 
whimsical  eyes. 


"What  does  it  matter  to  you,  pray  ?" 

"To  see  my  Rainbow  Girl  borne 
away?  Oh,  nothing,  nothing  at  all! 
Just — death!"  He  turned  away  bit- 
terly. 

Over  his  shoulder  floated  a  low 
enchanting  laugh. 

"You  dear,  misguided  infant !  I've 
seen  too  many  Americans  to  be  daz- 
zled into  matrimony  with  any  of  the 
needy  European  nobility!  I'll  leave 
that  to  Aunt  Iris!  and  the  moral,  O, 
blind  sir,  is — ^put  not  your  trust  in  so- 
ciety columns,  for  lo!  they  shall — " 

Stanilaus  caught  impetuously  at  the 
hands  that  were  stealing  prudently  be- 
hind her  back. 

"Iris!  Dear  love,  let  me  see  your 
face!" 

"Oh,  how  outrageously  wet  I'm  get- 
ting 1    Rex,  let  me  go !" 

"Never,  never!  Dear,  dear  little 
Rainbow  Girl,  all  through  these  three 
long,  dark  years,  I  have  dreamed  of 
this  moment  and  tried  to  put  aside  the 
torturing  thought  of  a  life  without 
your  love!  Iris,  it  is  all  over — ^the 
luxury  I  might  have  brought  you. 
Nothing  is  left  but  a  poor  pilot  of 
liners,  but  if  you're  willing  to  finish 
your  work  of  making,  a  man  of  him, 
my  precious  Rainbow  Girl — " 

"Dear,  let  me  go!  there's  that  odi- 
ous second  mate  staring — " 

"Iris!"  pleaded  the  voice,  inexor- 
ably. 

The  answer  was  a  mere  murmur 
with  a  soft  laugh  thrilling  through  it. 
"O,  King,  Uve  forever!" 

Closer  and  closer  the  ash  cloak  was 
folded  in  the  big  oilskin,  till  yachting 
cap  and  helmet  touched. 

Together  they  watched  the  majes- 
tic sweep  of  the  "Osprey,"  as  she 
steamed  from  high  seas  into  port. 

Digitized  by  LjOOQIC 


An  Historical  Snow  Storm 


By  Amy  Woods 


JUST  six  years  ago,  on  Tuesday, 
the  first  day  of  February,  Bos- 
ton became  the  battle  g^und 
of  the  fiercest  war  of  the  ele- 
ments known  for  twenty-five  years. 
The  contending  storms  had  been 
gathering  forces  for  more  than  a  week, 
one  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  South- 
ern Capes,  the  other  having  headquar- 
ters on  the  shore  of  Lake  Huron  and 
drawing  upon  the  entire  lake  region. 
Their  movements  were  so  unusual 
that  even  the  Weather  Bureau  had  no 
idea  of  their  tactics,  and  gave  out  the 
preceding  night  a  prediction  of  a  drop 
in  temperature.  What  really  hap- 
pened was  a  steady  rise  in  the  ther- 
mometer from  zero  to  thirty  degrees 
during  Monday,  and  the  snow  flakes 
which  fell  so  gently  in  the  morning 
came  faster  and  faster,  until  at  dusk 
the  two  mighty  armies  from  South 
and  West  were  in  fiercest  combat. 

All  night  the  battle  raged,  and  when 
the  dawn  came  it  found  a  city  trans- 
formed. It  was  fairyland  upon  which 
the  sun  rose — 3,  city  hushed  in  an 
enchanted  sleep.  Over  the  ground 
was  spread  a  mantle  of  unbroken 
whiteness.  On  the  Common  the  trees, 
heavy  laden,  bent  to  the  ground. 
Every  building  was  a  marble  palace; 
every  little  knob  was  capped  with 
snow.  The  staid  New  England 
spires  were  changed  to  Eastern  min- 
arets of  icy  splendor.  The  snow,  too, 
had  played  many  fantastic  tricks — ^it 
was  wet  and  clinging  and  had  caught 
754 


on  each  little  projection,  changing, 
enlarging  and  remodelling  statues  to 
grotesque  proporticms. 

Yet  these  were  merely  the  super- 
ficial, the  aesthetic  efiFects  of  the  giant 
storm;  this  was  as  the  dty  24>peared 
to  the  eye  of  the  artist  or  the  poet  It 
was  found  that  Boston,  clothed  in  her 
mantle  of  surpassing  beauty,  was  a 
helpless  cripple.  Her  wires  were 
down,  her  trains  were  at  a  standstill, 
and  her  street  car  service  was  com- 
pletely paralyzed. 

The  morning  revelations  of  the 
previous  night's  occurrences  gave 
ample  proof  of  the  magnitude  of  the 
storm.  Some  were  romantic,  and 
thrilling,  and  some  were  serious. 
But  for  the  most  part  the  spirit  of 
adventure  tempered  the  discomfiture 
tliat  had  beset  the  public,  and  those 
who  accepted  the  situaticm  philosophi- 
cally far  out-numbered  the  grumblers. 

The  serious  blockading  had  begun 
about  eleven  o'clock  Monday  night 
with  patrons  of  the  theatres  vainly 
calling  for  cabs.  The  suburbanites 
were  in  a  dilemma.  Some  spent  the 
night  at  the  hotels,  which  were  over- 
crowded; five  hundred  got  as  far  as 
the  Union  Station,  and  could  get  no 
farther.  Those  who  were  on  the  out- 
going trains  were  stalled  a  little  way 
from  the  dty,  and  spent  the  night  un- 
der tunbrdlas  to  keep  oS  the  snow 
which  drifted  in  through  the  ventila-. 
tors.  In  the  morning,  foraging  expe- 
ditions started  out  and  returned  with 


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AN   HISTORICAL  SNOW  STORM 


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chilled  oranges,  crackers  and  milk, 
which  were  distributed  to  the  passen- 
gers. Most  of  these  night  trains 
were  twenty-four  hours  reaching 
their  destination.  One  train  took  six- 
teen hours  to  go  from  Boston  to  Ded- 
ham.  Another  train  on  the  southern 
division  of  the  Boston  and  Maine 
worked  its  way  with  the  aid  of  three 


subway  crowded  with  people  were 
held  up  long  before  they  could  reach 
their  destinations,  and  stood  motion*- 
less,  unable  to  advance  or  retreat,  the 
wheels  clogged,  the  fenders  jammed 
against  a  bank  of  snow,  and  despite 
the  fact  that  over  seven  thousand  men 
were  set  to  work  long  before  dawn,  it 
was  not  until   three   o'clock   Tuesday 


'•It  was  Fairyland  upon  which  the  Sun  Rose— a  City  Hushed  in  an  Enchanted  Sleep" 


engines  pounding  back  and  forth,  only 
to  be  stopped  a  few  miles  out  by 
a  mass  of  fallen  wires  across  the 
tracks. 

But  on  the  whole,  the  railroad 
service  suffered  far  less  interference 
than  did  the  street  car  system.  Hun- 
dreds of  electric  cars  that  had  left  the 


afternoon  that  any  were  again  run- 
ning. Unwary  passengers  who  were 
thus  snow  bound  for  twelve  hours 
or  more  were  fed  by  those  good 
Samaritans  along  the  route  who  were 
able  to  get  to  the  cars  with  hot  coffee 
and  sandwiches.  They  might  cer- 
tainly have  felt  that  they  had  had  a 


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AN   HISTORICAL  SNOW  STORM 


taste  of  Ben  Franklin's  famous  receipt 
for  home-made  sleighing:  "Stand  in  a 
tub  of  cold  water  in  the  hall  of  one's 
house,  with  an  open  door,  back  and 
front,  for  a  good  draught,  and  jingle 
a  string  of  sleigh  bells," — the  clang  of 
the  electric  bell  being  substituted  for 
the  more  poetic  sound.  Probably  they 
encountered  as  much  danger  as  such 


Except  for  this  the  city  would  have 
been  in  total  darkness,  for  electric 
light  poles  gave  way,  as  well  as  tel- 
egraph and  telephone,  before  the  aw- 
ful wind,  and  as  they  fell,  the  arc 
globes  ran  out  to  the  end  of  the  iron 
arm,  came  to  a  stop  with  a  jerk,  and 
broke.  The  light  sputtered  and  died 
to  a  purple  spark,  then  flared  up  in  a 


"On  the  Common,  the  Trees,  Heavy  Laden,  Bent  to  the  Ground** 


a  course  would  furnish,  for  the  wind 
blew  all  night  at  the  rate  of  fifty  miles 
an  hour,  and  electric  poles,  with  their 
heavy  freight  of  wire,  crashed  down 
about  them.  Many  mistook  the  vivid 
flashes  which  came  from  the  electric 
lights  for  sheet  lightning,  and  mar- 
velled   at    the    strange    phenomenon. 


dazzling  white  light.  From  under  the 
gathering  snow,  live  wires  sent  forth 
vivid  flashes  of  green  and  sometimes 
crimson  light.  In  place  of  thunder 
came  the  constant  booming  of  guns 
signalling  distress  off  the  coast.  It 
was  a  brilliant  and  terrible  scene.  Zeus 
had  arranged  a  gigantic  spectacular 


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AN   HISTORICAL  SNOW  STORM 


757 


performance  with  Boston  for  the  stage 
setting. 

Tuesday  morning  it  was  also  found 
that  all  communication  with  the  out- 
side world  was  cut  off  within  a  radius 
of  fifty  miles.  The  fire  department  was 
useless.  Bells  and  whistles  had  lost 
their  power  to  signal  "No  School." 
Banks  were  closed.    Dry  goods  stores 


house  managed  to  get  there,  but  dis- 
persed after  discussing  the  storm. 
Neither  branch  of  the  General  Court 
was  opened.  Such  a  storm  could  even 
block  Uncle  Sam's  business.  The  out- 
going mail  to  New  York  was  stalled 
at  Forest  Hills, — the  incoming  mail 
did  not  arrive,  and  only  that  which 
was  in  the  West  End  Street  Railway's 


.^•y 


.1     ^^A 


.i^« 


^^ 


The  Shaw  Monument  Remodelled 


opened  with  a  small  corps  behind  the 
counter,  but  closed  before  noon  be- 
cause of  lack  of  customers,  and  car- 
ried home  their  employees  in  delivery 
wagons  when  going  was  possible  to  a 
certain  extent. 

Affairs  at  the  State  House  were  at 
a  standstill;  a  few  members  of  each 


mail  cars  was  delivered  at  the  post- 
office  that  day.  It  was  carried  from 
the  cars  in  five  sleighs. 

As  for  the  suburbs,  they  might  as 
well  have  been  in  Kamchatka,  for  all 
they  knew  about  Boston.  It  was  a 
time  to  get  out  a  volume  of  "Snow 
Bound/'  build  up  the  open  fire,  and 


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758 


AN   HISTORICAL  SNOW  STORM 


fancy  you  were  back  in  your  grand- 
father's time,  when  just  such  emer- 
gencies were  planned  for,  and  the  red 
ears  hung  from  the  rafters  waiting  to 
be  popped  into  a  miniature  snow 
storm.  Piazzas,  steps,  yard,  road  and 
stone  wall  were  all  one,  obliterated  by 
the  great  drifts  which  the  wind  had 


the   others,   whose   persistency    went 
unrewarded,  turned  home  later. 

One  over-conscientious  man  walked 
six  miles  to  the  city  on  snow  shoes, 
and  staid  the  rest  of  the  day  at  the 
druggist's  in  a  state  of  total  collapse, 
while  his  fellow-workers  took  advan- 
tage of  the  enforced  holiday,  and  on 


The  Frog  Pond 

piled  up  on  its  unimpeded  way  an  impromptu  pair  of  snow  shoes, 
through  the  open  country.  Men  dug  made  of  the  baby-carriage  runners 
their  way  to  the  station  with  shovels,  and  an  old  sheet,  enjoyed  the  luxuri- 
Had  warrants  been  issued  in  time,  a  ous  extravagance  of  nature, 
great  deal  of  town  business  might  Still  another  man  of  the  conscien- 
have  been  officially  settled  while  they  tious  type  went  on  horseback  to  Bos- 
waited.  As  it  was,  the  more  easily  con-  ton,  only  to  find  the  doors  of  his 
vinced  turned  homeward  at  ten,  and  banking    house  closed    against    him; 


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AN   HISTORICAL  SNOW  STORM 


759 


and  a  newspaper  reporter,  wishing  to 
break  the  record,  hired  relays  of 
teams,  and  got  to  his  paper  at  noon. 

The  northern  suburbs  suffered  the 
most — Maiden  especially.  One  lady, 
who  went  from  a  town  next  but  one 
adjoining  Maiden,  on  Monday  was 
unable  to  return  to  her  home  until 
Friday. 

Enterprising  men,  who  had  pungs 
and  Yankee  shrewdness,  got  them  out 
and  plied  a  good  trade  after  the  first 
roads  were  broken,  /  carrying  stray 
travellers  to  town  for  a  good  round 
price. 

General  Bancroft,  president  of  the 
West  End  Street  Railway  Company, 
was  called  up  by  telephone  at  his  home 
in  Cambridge  Monday  night  at  two 
o'clock.  He  started  at  once  for  Bos- 
ton, but  his  sleigh  was  stuck  before 
reaching  the  bridge  and  he  was 
obliged  to  walk  the  rest  of  the  way, 
arriving  at  the  office  at  half  past  three. 
From  that  time,  strenuous  efforts  were 
made  to  keep  the  tracks  clear  and  to 
free  those  already  blocked.  Seventy- 
eight  horse  snow  plows  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty  electric  plows  were 
started  in  different  directions.  Men 
were  engaged  as  rapidly  as  they  ap- 
plied at  the  car  stables,  and  were  set 
to  work  at  the  nearest  spot.  There 
was  no  excuse  for  the  unemployed 
that  day.  The  street  railway  alone  es- 
timated the  cost  of  repairing  damage 
at  two  hundred  thousand  dollars. 

As  the  day  advanced,  the  firing  of 
cannon  came  less  often,  and  the  si- 
lence following  told  all  too  plainly  the 
fate  of  the  poor  mariners  whose  ap- 
peals could  not  be  answered.  The 
loss  of  life  and  destruction  of  vessels 
were  the  worst  ever  caused  by  any 


storm  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston.  In 
Gloucester  Harbor,  over  thirty  ves- 
sels went  down  during  the  night. 

As  has  been  said  before,  tele- 
graphic communication  was  com- 
pletely discontinued  and  it  was  not 
until  trains  had  succeeded  in  reaching 
Worcester  that  any  news  could  be 
given  or  received  from  the  outside 
world.  It  was  found  there  that  wires 
were  in  good  condition  to  New  York. 
All  messages  between  towns  in  the 
New  England  States  had  to  be  sent 
via  New  York  until  late  Wednesday 
evening.  As  soon  as  New  York  re- 
ceived word  from  Boston,  three  gangs 
of  men  were  sent  to  Framingham  to 
work  toward  Boston  on  the  Postal 
Telegraph  wires,  and  seven  gangs 
started  from  the  city  to  work  toward 
them. 

The  Western  Union  was  a  little 
more  fortunate,  as  both  wires  from 
New  York  to  Newton  were  found  in 
good  condition,  and  the  company  was 
able  to  patch  up  the  wires  this  side 
of  Newton. 

News  of  the  Gloucester  disasters 
reached  Boston  in  a  round-about  way 
that  shows  the  indomitable  enterprise 
of  the  modern  newspaper  reporter. 
Finding  no  direct  means  of  communi- 
cation, he  cabled  to  London;  from 
London  his  message  was  cabled  to 
New  York;  from  New  York  it  was 
wired  to  Worcester,  and  from  Worces- 
ter brought  by  special  train  to  Bos- 
ton. Fearing  some  unforeseen  delay, 
he  also  started  a  man  on  snow  shoes 
to  walk  to  Boston,  and  prepared  an- 
other copy  to  go  direct  by  train.  All 
three  arrived  in  time  for  the  Wednes- 
day morning  paper,  but  the  cablegram 
arrived  first  and  was  the  one  used. 


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AN   HISTORICAL  SNOW  STORM 


Fancy  good  Governor  Winthrop's 
surprise  at  the  rapidity  of  good  old 
quiet  Boston ! 

Although  the  centre  of  the  storm 
was  in  Boston,  it  was  by  no  means 
confined  to  eastern  Massachusetts. 
Maine  suffered  with  an  intense  cold 
wave  which  lasted  nearly  two  weeks, 


"Portia,"  which  was  hastening  to  their 
assistance,  was  caught  in  an  ice  jam 
and  unable  to  reach  shore  or  be 
reached. 

New  Hampshire  received  her  share, 
especially  in  the  eastern  part,  and  re- 
ported that  passengers  were  impris- 
oned in  trains  near  Portsmouth  and 


A  Vista  Opposite  the  Park  Street  Mall 


before  terminating  in  a  heavy  fall  of 
snow.  The  mercury,  vacillating  be- 
tween twenty  and  forty-three  de- 
grees below  zero,  had  broken  the  rec- 
ord of  the  last  twenty-five  years. 

From  Newfoundland  came  the  re- 
port that  fishermen  on  the  coast  were 
starving,  while  the  Red  Cross  steamer 


had  to  go  without  food  for  thirteen 
hours. 

Rhode  Island  suffered,  especially 
near  Providence,  where  traffic  was 
blocked  for  some  time,  while  Connect- 
icut was  hardly  affected  at  all. 

As  for  the  gale  which  accompanied 
the  fall  of  snow,  it  was  felt  as  far 


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AN   HISTORICAL  SNOW  STORM 


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south  as  Virginia,  and  as  far  west  as 
Chicago,  holding  a  speed  of  more 
than  twenty-seven  miles  an  hour  for 
eleven  hours. 

For  many  days  after  the  principal 
thoroughfares  were  opened,  Boston 
streets  at  the  North  End  were  blocked 
and  the  fire  engines  on  several  occa- 
sions were  obliged  to  plough  through 
snow  up  to  the  hubs,  and  the  men  to 
wade  through  drifts  to  reach  the  side- 
walks. 

It  is  an  awe-inspiring  sight  to  see  an 
active  city  laid  at  rest  as  completely 
as  though  she  had  inhaled  a  power- 
ful anaesthetic.  So  on  Tuesday  morn- 
ing lay  Boston  wrapped  in  the  com- 
plete silence  of  insensibility.  Tuesday 
evening  the  full  round  moon  shone 
down  on  her  and  lighted  her  still  si- 
lent streets.  That,  too,  was  a  beauti- 
ful sight  never  to  be  forgotten.  But 
far  greater  than  either  was  the  spec- 
tacle of  her  awakening.  By  Wednes- 
day afternoon,  she  was  well  started 
from  complete  inertia  to  her  usual  ac- 
tivity. By  Thursday  she  was  in  run- 
ning order  again  except  for  the  ir- 
regularity of  the  mails.  And  Friday 
saw  a  complete  recovery  from  her  at- 
tack of  locomotor  ataxia. 

There  is  a  saying  that  the  snow  will 
be  as  deep  as  the  icicles  are  long — 
which  proved  quite  true.  From  eaves 
and  gutters  hung  long  icy  stalactites, 
each  a  veritable  sword  of  Damocles 
to  passers  below  when  the  first  sign 
of  thaw  appeared.  The  sidewalks 
had  to  be  roped  off  and  roof  shovel- 
ling became  a  science.  Men  sus- 
pended by  ropes  from  the  ridge  poles 
of  slanting  roofs  crawled  guardedly 
to  the  edge  and  shovelled  their  way 


slowly  back.  Others  were  swung  from 
derricks  out  over  the  copings  to  clear 
away  the  face  of  a  building,  and  the 
unwary  traveller  beneath,  even  though 
he  were  outside  the  rope,  was  in  con- 
stant danger  of  an  uncompromising 
blow  or  at  least  the  ruining  of  his  ha^. 

Despite  the  many  dangers  from 
such  experiences,  and  collisions,  and 
exposure,  and  live  wires,  which  were 
by  far  the  greatest  danger  of  all, 
there  was  an  unusually  small  number 
of  casualties.  Excepting  the  trage- 
dies on  the  sea,  where  twenty-two 
men  were  recorded  lost  in  Massachu- 
setts Bay  alone,  and  the  many  others 
who  found  an  unmarked  grave,  only 
three  Italians  were  killed  by  exposure. 

But  although  the  loss  of  life  was 
comparatively  small,  the  loss  of  prop- 
erty was  inestimable.  Reckoning  the 
loss  to  telegraph  and  telephone  and 
lighting  companies,  to  steam  and  elec- 
tric railroads,  and  the  expense  of  the 
city  with  the  shipping  losses  and  the 
loss  of  practically  two  days'  business 
in  every  department  of  trade,  the  total 
must  have  reached  high  up  in  the  mil- 
lions. And  besides  all  this,  there  was 
the  irremediable  injury  to  the  elms 
on  the  Common  and  the  Public  Gar- 
den and  in  the  old  Granary  Burying 
Ground,  and,  in  fact,  through  the 
entire  storm-beaten  region. 

Against  this  gloomy  record  of  loss 
and  disaster  the  storm  can  be  credited 
with  one  triumphant  achievement: 
The  snow  that  covered  the  ground 
with  a  mantle  of  white  yielded  two 
white  pages  to  the  criminal  records. 
There  was  practically  no  crime  com- 
mitted in  Boston  on  the  31st  of  Janu- 
ary and  the  ist  of  February,  1898, 


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Harbor  of  Newfoundland 


The  Newfoundland  of  To-Day 


By  Day  Allen  Willey 


A  TALE  which  tells  of  four  cen- 
turies of  heroism  is  that  of 
.  Britain's  oldest  colony.  Since 
the  first  settlers  disem- 
barked in  the  new-found-land  of 
Cabot,  to  this  day,  the  people  have 
shown  themselves  to  be  the  Vikings  of 
the  West.  In  their  struggle  for  exist- 
ence they  have  merely  sought  to  place 
the  ocean  under  tribute, — not  to  con- 
quer others, — but  in  doing  this  have 
performed  deeds  of  valor  and  shown 
endurance  and  courage  which  have 
rarely  been  equalled  by  the  seafarers 
of  the  world.  They  were  forced  to 
become  fishers  or  starve,  and  upon  the 
waters  do  they  still  depend.  Happily 
this  part  of  the  Atlantic  forms  the 
world's  greatest  fish  pond,  and 
he  who  ventures  upon  it  is  often 
richly  rewarded,  although  there  are 
times    when    fortune    does    not   fa- 

762 


vor  and  the  islander  may  return 
from  his  week's  or  month's  quest  with 
little  store  against  the  long,  cold  win- 
ter season  with  its  weeks  of  enforced 
idleness. 

A  strange  paradox  is  it  that  the 
great  oceanic  river  which  flows  south- 
ward from  the  pole,  encircling  Labra- 
dor's bleak  peninsula  and  eddying 
about  the  promontories  of  Newfound- 
land, should  teem  with  living  creatures 
which  form  the  food  of  not  only  the 
cod  but  the  whale,  and  small  fish  the 
prey  of  the  seal.  To  the  Arctic  current 
is  due  the  existence  of  the  colony,  for 
should  it  cease  to  flow  the  fisheries 
would  be  a  memory  and  the  people 
forced  to  cross  the  Atlantic  to  follow 
their  occupation.  It  is  a  river  of  life 
and  death,  for  on  its  bosom  are  borne 
the  bergs  and  floes  of  ice  in  spring 
and    early   summer  that   aid   in   en- 


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763 


shrouding  the  ocean.  As  the  traveller 
sails  past  the  jagged  black  line  that 
marks  the  southern  coast,  here  and 
there  he  sees  a  hulk  not  yet  pounded 
to  pieces  by  the  breakers — the  work 
of  a  fog  wreck.  Others  there  are  on 
the  bottom  beneath  him,  their  steel 
hulls  shattered  by  the  wall  of  ice  un- 
seen in  the  mist  until  too  late  to  be 
avoided.  The  Arctic  and  the  Gulf 
streams  have  given  this  expanse  of 
water  the  title  of  the  "graveyard  of 


of  land.  A  week  may  elapse  when 
the  skipper  can  not  see  the  sun  to  get 
his  bearings,  and  must  moor  or  drift 
until  the  fog  lifts  with  only  the  faint 
notes  of  the  horn  or  the  clang  of  the 
fog  bell  to  warn  the  other  craft  of  his 
presence.  If  a  southeast  gale  sweeps 
over  the  ocean,  he  must  trust  to  his 
anchor  to  help  him  ride  it  out.  He 
may  be  late  on  the  Banks  and  caught 
in  winter's  clutches,  make  his  way  as 
best  he  can  to  the  nearest  port  with 


Crew  of  a  Grand  Banks  Fishing  Vessel,  Showing  the  Type  of  Men  who  are  the 

Vikings  of  the  West 


the  Atlantic," — a  name  that  the  men 
of  Newfoundland  know  only  too  well, 
for  upon  it  they  have  sailed  to  and 
fro  year  after  year  as  did  their  fathers 
and  forefathers — and  it  is  not  every 
voyager  who  returns.  Perhaps  the 
"Banks"  fishermen  risk  the  most,  but 
it  is  on  this  vast  submarine  plateau 
that  the  largest  and  finest  fish  are 
taken,  so  he  is  willing  to  go  the  miles 
and  miles  to  reach  it,  often  to  remain 
a  month  or  more  with  never  a  glimpse 


his  crew  half  frozen,  for  a  fisher 
tempts  fate  by  remaining  too  long  in 
order  to  fill  his  hold.  But  the  next 
year  finds  the  trim  little  schooner  "fit- 
ting out"  at  St.  Johns,  or  in  one  of  the 
sheltered  southern  coves,  to  again 
gather  the  sea  harvest — though  per- 
haps another  captain  will  take  the 
wheel  and  more  than  a  few  new  hands 
will  coil  the  lines  and  bait  the  hooks. 

But  it  is  a  wild,  free  life  they  live, 
bringing  out  the  sterndr  stuff  in  a 

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THE   NEWFOUNDLAND   OF   TO-DAY 


man.  Constant  battling  with  the  sea 
has  caused  them  to  defy  its  varying 
moods,  still,  familiarity  has  not  bred 
contempt.  No  one  knows  better  what 
the  Atlantic  means  when  in  anger, 
but  he  of  the  Banks  prefers  the  storm 
to  the  mist.  The  one  he  can  fight 
openly.  He  knows  his  chances  for 
victory  or  defeat.  The  other  is  a 
treacherous  foe,  stealing  upon  him, 
silently,  suddenly.      He   can   not   tell 


are  driven  together,  for  it  is  indeed  a 
shroud  that  covers  the  waters  so 
thickly  one  can  not  peer  a  hundred  feet 
into  its  mysteries.  As  it  lifts,  so  rise 
the  spirits  of  the  crew,  and  as  the 
ocean  puts  on  a  smiling  face,  the  white 
crests  of  the  waves  glistening  in  the 
sunlight,  they  call  cheerily  to  each 
other  and  sing  as  they  haul  away  at 
the  lines  and  pass  the  fare  into  the 
hold. 


Fitting  Out  a  Fishing  Schooner  for  a  Cruise.    Coiling  the  Lines 


what  it  conceals — possibly  a  great 
liner  hurrying  across  the  ocean  ferry 
at  express  train  speed.  Should  he 
be  in  its  path  the  fog  bell  or 
horn  are  of  little  avail — a  crash, 
and  his  boat  is  out  of  sight 
or  a  mass  of  wreckage,  before  the 
steamer  can  check  her  speed.  There 
may  be  a  thousand  craft  on  this 
ground  in  the  season,  and  often  they 


The  crews  of  to-day  have  two  ways 
of  fishing.  From  the  deck  is  thrown 
the  hand  line,  going  down  twenty  or 
thirty  fathoms  to  where  the  cod,  lazily 
swimming  or  floating  just  above  the 
bottom,  sees  the  tempting  morsel  and 
snatches  it  in  preference  to  exerting 
himself  to  get  other  food.  Up  he  is 
pulled  to  the  surface,  thence  to  the 
deck.     A  boy  takes  the  fish  from  the 


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THE   NEWFOUNDLAND   OF   TO-DAY 


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hook,  baits  it  and  hands  it  back  to  the 
fisher  to  be  again  cast.  A  few  slashes 
of  a  knife  and  the  cod  is  open  and 
cleaned  to  be  thrown  into  the  hold, 
where,  rubbed  in  salt,  he  is  packed 
away  with  the  others  already  caught,  I 
to  remain  until  the  cargo  is  taken  out  ■ 
at  the  home  port.  But  while  the  crew 
are  thus  pulling  in  and  casting,  out 
on  the  sea  perhaps  a  mile,  perhaps 
two  or  three  hours'  sail  of  the  dory, 
lashed  to  the  deck  are  a  line  of  floats 
bobbing  up  and  down.  The  little 
flags  at  each  end  of  the  floats  guide 
the  dorymen  to  the  set  line  from  which 
a  hundred  or  two  hundred  other  lines 
extend  to  the  bottom.  Once  or  twice 
a  day  this  minature  fishery  is  visited 
to  secure  its  yield  and  bait  the  hooks. 
If  the  school  is  large  the  boat  may  be 
filled  to  the  gunwale  before  all  the 
hooks  are  examined,  for  the  Banks 
cod  may  weigh   from  ten   to  fifteen 


The  Codfish  of  the  Grand  Banks  which 

Tempt  a  Thousand  Crews  Yearly  to 

Brave  Their  Dangers 


One  of  the   Icebergs  which  Menace  the 
Fishermen 

pounds.  To  guide  the  dory  back 
safely  the  men  bend  to  the  oars  hour 
after  hour  against  the  head  wind, 
braving  the  danger  of  being  swamped 
in  the  heavy  seas.  Hereabouts,  gales 
spring  up  as  suddenly  as  the  fog  de- 
scends, and  many  a  boat's  crew  has 
been  driven  away  before  the  storm, 
never  to  be  again  heard  from.  Un- 
fortunately cod  are  fickle.  They 
move  in  great  groups  here  and  there, 
sometimes  lingering  a  time  over  one 
spot.  While  they  are  biting  the  fish- 
ers work  far  into  the  night  gathering 
in  the  harvest,  but  when  they  cease, 
sail  must  be  spread  in  the  cruise  to 
find  another  school,  which  may  mean 
days  or  a  week  of  idleness. 

Hours  before  the  dark  line  on  the 
horizon  that  marks  the  island  coast  is 
visible  the  vessel  bound  hither  passes 
the  "near  shore"  fishermen,  sometimes 
a  hundred  miles  from  the  nearest  har- 
bor, yet  riding  at  anchor  with  sails 
furled,  or  beating  about  in  search  of 
a  ground.  Much  frailer  and  smaller 
than  the  staunch  bankers,  which  range 
from  100  to  150  tons  burthen,  with 
their  crews  of  a  score  or  more,  these 
may  contain  only  two  or  three  men. 


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THE    NEWFOUNDLAND    OF   TO-DAY 


Group  of  Children  in  a  Newfoundland 
Fishing  Hamlet 

Some  are  merely  open  boats  without 
even  a  deck,  in  which  the  islanders 
venture  out  for  two  or  three  days, 
trusting  to  a  fair  wind  to  bring  them 
home  speedily.  In  their  quest  they 
are  often  led  far  out  of  sight  of  land 
and  left  to  the  mercy  of  storm  and  fog. 
They  incur  the  additional  danger  of 
being  driven  ashore,  which  is  not 
risked  by  their  brethren  on  the 
Banks,  and  not  a  few  meet  fate  in 
this  way.  One  may  count  fifty  such 
craft  in  the  range  of  vision  at  one 
time.  They  are  not  confined  to  any 
one  locality.  In  the  bays  and  on  the 
open  sea  they  sail  to  the  east,  south 
and  west.  But  onward  forges  the 
ship  until,  as  the  shore  looms  up  plain- 
ly, still  smaller  craft,  some  without 
even  a  sail,  dot  the  surface  of  the 
water,  coming  from  the  mere  cracks 
and  crevices  which  pierce  the  bluff. 
Out  in  the  morning  and  back  at  night, 
if  no  mishap  befalls,  they  hail  from 
the  hamlets  built  on  some  isolated 
plateau,  or  perhaps  a  scanty  patch  of 
beach,  which    nature    has   reluctantly 


provided,    a    cleft    amid    the    rocky 
ledges. 

And  as  the  men  of  the  Grand  Banks 
have  gone  down  to  the  sea  for  cent- 
uries, so  the  people  of  some  of  these 
i  coast  villages  have  existed  since  the 
I  early  days  of  the  colony  on  what  their 
boats  have  brought  in  at  the  nightfall. 
Over  250  years  ago  was  Quidi  Vidi 
founded.     Its  settlement  dates  nearly 
as  far  back  as  St.  Johns,  from  which 
it  is  distant  an  hour's  walk,  yet  now, 
as  in  the  first  year  of  its  occupation, 
its  dozen  boats  pass  out  to  sea  in  the 
morning  and  return  at  night  through 
a  rift  in  the  rocks  just  wide  enough 
to  admit  them.     On  the  little  band  of 
fishers  the  hundred  or  so  people  abso- 
lutely depend.     Their  cluster  of  huts 
called  homes  and  the  modest  church 
edifice  are  built  on  a  rocky  slope  from 
which  springs  no  green  thing  save  a 
few  tufts  of  grass  and  weeds,  and  here 
and    there   a    tree.     Tlie   gardens   of 
Quidi  Vidi  are  "flakes"  on  which  the 
women  and  children  salt  and  spread 
the  cargoes  of  the  fish  boats  to  cure  by 
the  aid  of  the  sunlight.     The  banks 
of  Quidi  Vidi  are  the  sheds  where  the 
cod  piled  in  heaps,  like  so  many  slabs 
of  fire  wood,  represent  so  much  money 
to  be  guarded  as  zealously  as  gold 
treasure,    for   the   cod   is    indeed   the 
"currency"  of   Newfoundland,   to  be 
exchanged  for  other  food  and  clothing 
with  the   tradesmen.     The  other  in- 
dustry of  Quidi  Vidi  is  boat  and  sail 
making  merely   for  the   fishers.     So 
life  has  gone  on  in  this  comer  of  the 
world,   as   it  has  in  scores  of  other 
settlements    which    fringe    the    great 
island.     From  the  sea  has  come  their 
sustenance  and  the  history  of  one  is 
the  history  of  nearly  all.     Necessity 
has  often  driven  their  folk  to  risk  life 


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m 


amid  the  waves  of  an  Atlantic  storm, 
for  hunger  will  not  wait  for  the  gale 
to  pass,  and  these  coast  fishers  fre- 
quently venture  out  in  the  very  midst 
of  winter,  when  their  lines  must  be 
cast  amid  the  ice  cakes.  Then  there 
is  the  additional  danger  of  freezing, 
while  many  a  boat  has  been  crushed 
or  carried  out  to  sea  by  one  of  the 
treacherous  currents  which  move  the 
floes. 


be  stowed  aboard  is  carried,  for  their 
mission  is  to  secure  as  many  "pelts" 
as  possible  of  the  seals  for  whom  the 
ice  cakes  form  a  nursery  at  this  time 
of  the  year.  Here  they  are  born  and 
nurtured  for  the  first  months  of  their 
life,  and  so  numerous  are  they  that  a 
single  floe  a  half  acre  in  extent  may 
sustain  a  score  or  more.  As  the  ships 
steam  farther  and  farther  northward 
the  lookout  at  each  masthead  scans  the 


Leaving  the  Harbor  of  St.  Johns  for  the     Great  Seal  Hunt- 
Through  THE  Ice 


-Vessel  Forcing  its  Way 


Yet,  were  it  not  for  the  annual 
southern  movement  of  the  ice  fields 
the  seal  hunters  would  have  no  occu- 
pation. About  the  middle  of  March 
a  fleet  of  steamships  leave  St.  Johns 
and  other  harbors  to  go  as  far  as  pos- 
sible to  the  north.  Framed  with 
heavy  timbers  and  their  hulls  formed 
of  a  double  coating  of  plank,  they  are 
built  purposely  to  push  their  way 
through  the  ice.     Every  man  who  can 


horizon  for  signs  of  seal.  As  fast  as 
groups  are  sighted  parties  of  hunters 
are  landed  on  the  edge  of  the  pack 
in  boats.  Then  they  must  shift  for 
themselves.  To  reach  the  animals 
they  may  have  to  leap  crevices 
in  the  ice  where  a  fall  would  mean  to 
be  ground  to  death.  The  mass,  con- 
stantly in  agitation,  may  open  at  one's 
feet  and  engulf  him,  but  there  is  no 
time  to  think  of  what  may  happen. 


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THE   NEWFOUNDLAND   OF   TO-DAY 


As  fast  as  a  seal  is  reached,  a  blow  on 
the  head  with  the  iron-pointed  staff 
kills  it.  Out  comes  the  knife,  and  the 
skin  and  blubber  are  removed  with  a 
few  rapid  strokes,  to  be  tied  in  a  bun- 
dle. If  the  seals  are  numerous,  as  fast 
as  taken  the  "pelts"  are  left  in  a  pile 
to  be  removed  to  the  ship  later  by  the 
most  available  route.  Hour  after 
hour  the  men  scramble  over  the  frozen 
masses,  here  clambering  the  sides  of 
a  berg,  there  balancing  themselves  on 


the  long  night  they  burn  the 
seal  blubber  to  keep  from  freezing, 
only  to  find  with  daybreak  that  they 
are  out  of  sight  of  the  rest  of  human 
kind.  Perilous  as  is  the  vocation  of 
the  Banks  fisher,  he  has  his  boat  be- 
neath him,  but  here  a  man  is  indeed 
helpless,  for  he  knows  not  when  a  gale 
may  come  up  and  break  the  mass  into 
pieces.  He  has  no  means  of  leaving 
it  and  can  only  trust  in  Providence 
and   wait   for  the   rescuers.     A  vear 


Drawing  a  Carcass  Ashore  at  a  Whaling  Station  to  be  Cut  Up  for  the  Bone  and  Oil 


a  cake  just  large  enough  to  sustain 
their  weight,  thus  crossing  from  mass 
to  mass.  There  is  no  time  for  rest 
or  refreshment  until  all  that  can  be 
reached  are  killed  or  darkness  forces 
them  to  cease.  Many  a  party  wanders 
miles  away  from  the  nearest  ship 
which  gradually  separates  from  them 
by  the  ice  movements.  At  any  mo- 
ment a  snow  storm  may  come  up 
which  hides  them  from  view.  Com- 
pelled to  remain  on  the  floe  through 


rarely  passes  without  some  of  the 
hunting  parties  being  frozen  to  death 
or  driven  out  to  sea  on  a  floe,  never 
to  be  seen  again.  Yet  every  winter 
from  5,000  to  6,000  men  eagerly  vol- 
unteer for  this  service,  as  they  are  paid 
according  to  the  number  of  seals  each 
kills.  As  the  result  of  this  part  of  the 
sea  harvest  a  single  ship  may  return 
after  her  six  weeks  cruise  with  the 
pennant  flying  which  shows  she  has 
over  50,000  pelts  in  her  hold.     This 


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n^ 


means  fur  to  the  value  of  about  £20,- 
000,  to  say  nothing  of  the  oil. 

It  is  in  the  waters  to  the  north  and 
west  of  the  island  that  the  whale  fre* 
quently  appears  at  certain  seasons  of 
the  year,  feeding  on  the  animal  life 
carried  through  the  Straits  of  Belle 
Isle  and  into  the  numerous  fjords  of 
this  American  Norway.  Not  only  is 
the  cetacean  pursued  in  steam  vessels 


oar  takes  part.  The  larger  craft  usually 
have  a  harpoon  gun  mounted  in  the 
bow,  but  sometimes  the  weapon 
is  driven  into  the  whale  by  hand. 
Cautiously  the  little  flotilla  approaches 
the  spot  from  which  the  monster  is 
"blowing"  his  columns  of  water  into 
the  air,  the  crews  gradually  separating 
in  the  effort  to  surround  him.  As  the 
larger  boats  come  within  firing  dis- 


ROBERT    G.    ReID,    the    THOMAS    BRASSEY   OF   THE  ISLAND, 

AND  Builder  of  its  Remarkable  Railroad 


purposely  built  and  equipped,  but  the 
whale  hunters  of  northwestern  New- 
foundland do  not  fear  to  attack  him 
in  small  boats.  Familiar  with  his 
habits  they  have  arranged  stations  on 
natural  eminences,  overlooking  some 
of  the  favorite  feeding  grounds.  The 
appearance  of  a  whale  near  any  of  the 
settlements  is  a  signal  for  an  exodus  to 
the  boats ;  every  man  able  to  handle  an 


tance  the  gunners  discharge  their 
pieces,  while  the  others  dash  in  and 
endeavor  to  use  the  hand  weapons. 
Then  ensues  a  contest  which  is  thrill- 
ing in  the  extreme  as  the  creature 
plunges  here  and  there  in  his  endeavor 
to  escape.  Many  a  line  is  broken  and 
often  a  boat  is  struck  and  smashed, 
but  the  whalers  know  well  the  loss  if 
their  prey  escapes,  and  it  is  really  sel- 


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TriE    NEWFOUNDLAND    OF   TO-DaY 


dom  that  the  capture  is  not  effected, 
unless  it  happens  that  an  unusually 
large  one  has  been  harpooned.  After 
it  has  turned  on  its  side — a  sign  that 
life  is  extinct — perhaps  it  must  be 
towed  a  dozen  miles  or  more  to  the 
station  where  the  carcass  can  be 
hauled  out  of  the  water  by  a  steam 
engine,  cut  into  pieces,  the  valuable 
whalebone  removed  and  the  oil  ex- 
tracted from  the  blubber. 

An  army  of  60,000  compose  these 
sea  toilers  whose  devotion  to  their 
tasks  provides  for  nearly  150,000  more, 


its  pioneers  have  led  such  a  different 
life  that  in  appearance  and  speech 
thy  appear  to  be  a  distinct  race.  But 
they  have  not  degenerated.  The  strug- 
gle for  existence  for  themselves  as 
well  as  for  those  dependent  on  them 
has  increased  rather  than  diminished 
the  sturdiness  and  rugged  courage 
inherited  from  the  past.  Their  life 
despite  its  suffering  and  hardships  has 
tended  to  their  elevation  and  progress, 
for  it  is  beyond  question  that  as  a 
people  they  have  advanced  in  civiliza- 
tion much  more  than  some  others  who 


Workers  of  a  Copper  Mine— and  a  Pile  of  Ore.    In  the 
Background  can  be  Seen  the  Rocks  which  are  Composed  of  It 


— the  women  and  children  and  aged, — 
for  lads  scarcely  in  their  teens  take 
their  places  in  the  boats  with  brothers 
and  fathers — there  is  work  for  them 
as  well.  Many  whose  ancestors  fol- 
lowed Drake,  Grenville,  Raleigh  out 
of  England's  west  country,  and  were 
adventurers  sometime  in  the  Southern 
ocean,  are  among  the  island  dwellers. 
Some  have  descended  from  the  sur- 
vivors of  Gilbert's  ill-fated  expedition. 
Devon  has  done  much  in  colonizing 
the  island,  although  the  descendants  of 


have  not  had  to  overcome  such  ob- 
stacles as  Nature  has  placed  in  their 
way.  The  true  Newfoundlander  loves 
his  island  home  as  the  true  English- 
man loves  his  Sussex  or  his  Durham, 
and  the  visitor  notes  a  public  spirit 
pervading  every  section,  whether  he  is 
in  the  capital  itself  or  chances  in  a 
northern  hamlet  whose  people  are  sep- 
arated half  of  the  year  by  winter's 
grasp  from  others  of  their  kind.  An  il- 
lustration of  this  sentiment  was  given 
when  the  island  authorities  determined 


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THE  NEWFOUNDLAND   OF  TO-DAY 


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to  link  the  east  and  west  with  a  high- 
way of  steel.  The  building  of  the 
Newfoundland  railroad  would  never 
have  been  accomplished  had  not  the 
fishermen  by  the  thousands  responded 
to  the  call  for  assistance,  and  grasping 
spade  and  shovel  completed  this  high- 
way nearly  seven  hundred  miles 
through  the  wilderness.  It  was  a  re- 
markable exploit  which  Robert  G. 
Reid  thus  planned,  and  well  earned  for 
him  the  title  of  the  "Thomas  Brassey 
of  America."  Never  was  a  railroad 
built  in  a  region  more  sparsely  popu- 
lated. Along  the  route  mountains  were 
to  be  dug  through,  pathways  cut  in 
great  forests,  and  rivers  and  lakes 
crossed  on  bridges  notable  for  their 
length,  but  this,  the  greatest  public 
work  in  the  history  of  the  island,  was 
at  last  successfully  accomplished  be- 
cause it  appealed  to  the  pride  of  the 
people;  they  realized  it  was  for  the 
good  of  all.  When  the  first  train  left 
St.  Johns  for  the  western  shore  a  new 
era  was  indeed  inaugurated 

Had  the  natural  resources  he  pos- 
sesses been  exploited  as  in  other  coun- 
tries, the  lot  of  the  Newfoundlander 
might  not  have  been  as  hard,  but  like 
those  who  have  gone  before  him,  he 
has  kept  his  eye  turned  seaward  for 
his  livelihood,  and  to  this  day  merely 


the  edge  of  the  great  island  is  inhab- 
ited except  for  the  few  settlements 
along  the  railway.  One  may  wander 
hundreds  of  miles  over  moor  and  val- 
ley in  the  interior  and  meet  no  human 
being  save  an  occasional  hunter  or 
angler  to  whom  this  region  is  a  sports- 
man's paradise,  but  enough  has  been 
discovered  to  predict  that  the  riches 
hidden  away  in  the  hills  and  contained 
in  the  forests  may  one  day  equal  the 
wealth  of  what  annually  comes  from 
the  waters.  Something  is  already 
known  of  it.  Peculiar  looking  "stones" 
which  a  fisherman  used  as  ballast  and 
emptied  on  the  wharf  at  St.  Johns 
were  pieces  of  iron  ore  which  led  to 
the  discovery  of  the  island  of  metal 
which  feeds  one  of  the  greatest  Cana- 
dian industries.  A  child  found  a  glit- 
tering pebble  on  the  beach  of  a  fishing 
cove  and  carried  it  home.  A  geologist 
chanced  to  see  it,  and  this  is  why  New- 
foundland yields  a  sixth  of  the  world's 
supply  of  copper.  Gradually  but  surely 
interest  is  increasing  in  what  is  be- 
neath the  earth  as  well  as  beneath  the 
sea,  and  the  next  dec  ie  may  see  the 
Newfoundlander  displaying  the  same 
perseverance  and  energy  in  seeking 
these  resources  which  he  has  so  won- 
derfully exhibited  in  making  the  ocean 
minister  to  his  wants. 


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Paper  Money  in  the  New  England 

Colonies 


By  Frederic  Austin  Ogg 


IN  many  respects  the  darkest 
phase  of  the  colonial  history 
of  New  England  is  that  pre- 
sented by  the  precarious 
struggles  of  the  people  to  obtain  a 
sound  and  substantial  currency. 
The  settlers  of  Connecticut  and 
Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island, 
sprung  though  thcfy  generally  were 
from  the  well-to-do,  self-supporting 
classes  in  England,  were  not  men 
of  wealth,  and  for  this  reason,  as 
well  as  because  of  the  fact  that  the 
coin  of  the  realm  was  exceedingly 
scarce  even  in  London  and  old 
Plymouth,  they  brought  out  but  a 
very  limited  supply  of  money  to 
their  new  homes  in  the  wilderness. 
And  as  years  elapsed  before  they 
were  able  to  send  enough  commod- 
ities to  the  mother  country  to  pay 
for  the  goods  they  found  it  neces- 
sary to  purchase  there,  in  a  short 
time  the  colonists  found  themselves 
completely  drained  of  the  small 
currency  with  which  they  had  ar- 
rived in  America.  But  taxes  had  to 
be  paid,  salaries  made  good,  and 
articles  of  food  and  manufacture 
bought  and  sold.  The  financial  ex- 
tremity in  which  the  early  settlers 
found  themselves  drove  them  to  the 
adoption  of  various  expedients. 
One  of  these  was  the  use  of 
wampum,  the  shell  money  of  the  Ind- 
ians.    Another     was     the     arrange- 

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ment  of  a  system  of  country  pay, 
i.  e.,  the  discharge  of  obligations, 
not  in  coin  or  paper,  but  in  farm 
produce  or  other  obtainable  com- 
modities— ^fruits,  corn,  'barley,  cat- 
tle, poultry,  and,  in  fact,  anything 
possessing  a  market  value.  Neither 
of  these  styles  of  currency  was  at 
all  satisfactory.  The  wampum  had 
no  purchasing  power  whatever  in 
Europe,  and  its  power  in  the  col- 
onies fluctuated  in  a  most  embar- 
rassing manner  at  different  times 
and  in  different  places.  The  incon- 
veniences connected  with  its  use 
gradually  drove  it  from  circulation 
in  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  although  there  are  records 
of  its  employment  in  isolated  cases' 
well  down  toward  the  Revolution. 

The  disadvantages  of  country 
pay  are  obvious.  If  a  man  sold  a 
cow  he  might  have  to  take  his  pay 
in  potatoes,  even  though  well  sup- 
plied with  that  vegetable.  The 
minister  must  accept  his  salary  in 
the  form  of  com  or  fish  or  dried 
beef.  The  colonial  treasury  must 
be  ready  to  receive  live  stock,  as 
well  as  all  manner  of  vegetables  and 
cereals,  from  the  tax-paying  citi- 
zens, and  must  then  contrive  to  g^t 
these  more  or  less  perishable  com- 
modities off  its  hands  in  the  dis- 
charge of  public  obligations  as 
speedily  and  as  profitably  as  possi- 


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blcf.  There  was  practically  no  com- 
mon medium  of  exchange — nothing 
to  correspond  to  what  we  know  and 
use  as  money. 

In  1652  Massachusetts  attempted 
to  takcf  into  her  own  hands  the 
vexed  problem  of  supplying  a  uni- 
form and  stable  currency,  and  es- 
tablished at  Boston  the  first  colo- 
nial "minte  howse."  The  result  was 
a  considerable  issue  of  pine-tree 
shillings,  six-pences,  and  thrcfe- 
pences.  But  even  this  expedient 
did  not  greatly  improve  matters,  at 
least  after  a  few  years.  It  was 
found  that  the  coin  manufactured 
in  the  colonicfs  could  be  retained 
scarcely  better  than  that  minted  in 
England.  Instead  of  remaining  to 
facilitate  local  exchange,  it  was  ex- 
ported in  large  quantities  to  Eu- 
rope. Bullion,  too,  which  the  pro- 
moters of  the  mint  had  hoped  would 
be  carried  to  Boston  for  coinage, 
continued  still  to  be  shipped  to 
London.  The  consequence  was 
that  by  the  opening  of  the  last 
quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century 
the  colonists  found  themselves 
scarcely  better  supplied  with  a  cir- 
culating medium  than  they  had 
been  thirty  or  forty  years  before. 
The  need  for  money  was  felt  most 
keenly.  Nor  was  there  prospect 
of  an  early  bettering  of  conditions 
so  far  as  either  English  or  Amer- 
ican specie  was  concerned.  The 
colonial  legislatures  deliberated 
and  improvised,  entreated  and 
threatened,  in  a  well-meant  but 
vain  endeavor  to  improve  condi- 
tions. In  167s  Massachusetts  de- 
ducted one-fourth  from  the  as- 
sessed   rates    in    cases   where   pay- 


ment was  made  in  cash  instead  of 
country  pay.  Two  years  later,  in 
the  exigencies  of  King  Philip's 
War,  the  rebate  was  increased  to 
one-third.  The  scarcity  of  specie 
is  indicated  by  the  fact  that  it  was 
not  until  1678 — twenty-six  years 
after  the  establishing  of  the  mint — 
that  a  regular  money  rate  for  tax- 
ation was  named  in  Massachusetts 
along  with  the  usual  corn  rates.  By 
1680  the  colonial  officials  began  to 
be  clamorous  because  of  their  dis- 
like of  accepting  farm  produce  in 
lieu  of  cash  salaries,  and  in  that 
year  the  General  Court  was  con- 
strained to  provide  that  thereafter 
one-fourth  of  the  clerk's  salary 
should  be  payable  in  money.  In 
1684  it  was  ordered  that  back  debts 
for  salaries  should  be  payable  in 
the  towns  where  the  creditors 
lived,  rather  than  at  the  colonial 
treasury,  so  as  to  avoid  the  expense 
and  loss  incident  to  the  transport- 
ing of  country  pay.  It  appears  that 
by  1685  the  rule  of  remitting  one- 
third  of  taxes  assessed  when  pay- 
ment was  made  in  money  had  be- 
come well  established  in  Boston 
and  numerous  other  localities  of 
Massachusetts. 

From  all  the  ills  brought  down 
upon  the  colonists  by  reason  of  the 
scarcity  of  currency,  there  seemed 
to  remain  but  one  possible  way  of 
escape,  and  that  was  the  creation 
of  a  system  of  credit  and  the  issuing 
of  a  batch  of  paper  money  under 
the  authority  of  the  individual  colo- 
nial governments.  The  deprecia- 
tion of  wampum,  the  inconveniences 
of  country  pay,  the  exporting  of 
domestic  coin,  the   utter  confusion 


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PAPER  MONEY  IN   THE  NEW  ENGLAND  COLONIES 


and  uselessness  of  specie  brought 
in  through  the  channels  of  trade, 
and  the  consequent  paralyzing  of 
industrial  and  commercial  opera- 
tions, gradually  drove  the  colonists 
inevitably  into  the  devious  paths  of 
fiat  riioney.  The  first  paper  cur- 
rency issued  in  the  colonies  by  gov- 
ernmental authority  was  that  put 
out  in  1690  by  Massachusetts,  but 
before  this  emission  there  had  been 
numerous  experiments  leading  in 
that  direction. 

It  should  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  closing  years  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  the  first  quarter  of  the 
eighteenth  were  characterized  in 
Europe  by  the  most  gigantic  and 
unfortunate  speculative  enterprises 
the  world  had  yet  seen.  It  was  not 
merely  the  American  colonies  that 
had  been  suffering  from  a  scant 
currency;  every  country  of  western 
Europe  had  been  struggling  in  a 
measure  with  the  same  problem, 
and  England  prior  to  1663  had  been 
under  the  necessity  of  absolutely 
prohibiting  all  exporting  of  coin 
and  bullion.  In  Europe,  as  in 
America,  there  was  much  discus- 
sion of  the  currency  question.  The 
best  economists  were  giving  their 
thought  and  energy  to  the  devising 
of  an  answer  to  it.  The  outcome 
was  that,  in  their  groping,  the  great 
conception  of  credit  was  laid  hold 
of,  and  without  being  at  all  ade- 
quately understood,  was  heralded 
far  and  wide  as  the  panacea  for 
every  economic  ill.  If  men  would 
but  agree  upon  it,  taxes  and  salaries 
could  be  paid,  goods  could  be 
bought,  and  all  financial  obligations 
could    be    met,    absolutely    without 


money.  A  man  could  be  as  rich  as 
any  one  was  willing  to  believe  him 
to  be.  It  was  clearly  perceived  that 
such  credit  would  enormously  in- 
crease the  efficiency  of  capital;  it 
was  utterly  overlooked  that  such 
credit  is  not  capital  and  cannot  di- 
rectly create  capital.  The  craze  of 
credit  and  speculation  which  swept 
Europe  was  responsible  for  John 
Law's  project  for  a  Banque  Royale 
in  France,  the  French  Mississippi 
Bubble,  the  English  Land  Scheme, 
the  South  Sea  Bubble,  and  many 
other  less  noted  episodes  in  the 
financial  history  of  the  early  eigh- 
teenth century.  The  adoption  of  a 
paper  currency  system  in  the 
American  colonies  therefore  was  by 
no  means  an  isolated  phenomenon, 
out  of  harmony  with  the  spirit  of 
the  times;  it  was  rendered  inevi- 
table not  more  by  local  conditions 
than  by  the  contagion  of  European 
example. 

It  is  not  possible  to  determine 
who  among  the  early  New  England- 
ers  made  the  first  proposal  of  a 
paper  currency,  or  when  that  pro- 
posal was  made.  It  appears  that 
as  early  as  1636  paper  bills  were  is- 
sued in  Massachusetts  by  private 
persons,  but  these  were  nothing 
more  than  written  promises  to  pay, 
and  are  no  more  to  be  considered 
money  than  are  promissory  notes 
to-day.  In  1650  an  Englishman  by 
the  name  of  William  Potter  pub- 
lished a  book  called  "the  Key  of 
Wealth,  or  a  New  Way  for  Improv- 
ing of  Trade,"  in  which  was  set 
forth  an  elaborate  scheme  of  paper 
credit,  or  "a  way  to  avoid  the  re- 
tarding of  trade  on  account  of  the 


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scarcity  of  gold  and  silver."  There 
is  reason  to  believe  that  the  book 
was  not  without  its  immediate  in- 
fluence in  America  as  well  as  in 
England.  At  least  we  find  record 
in  this  same  year  of  a  scheme  in 
Massachusetts  for  "raiseing  a 
Banke."  By  a  "banke"  the  colo- 
nists meant  simply  an  issue  of  paper 
money,  fulfilling  the  functions  of 
bank  bills,  as  do  our  treasury  notes. 
It  was  deemed  more  expedient-  at 
this  time,  however,  to  increase  the 
currency  by  specie  than  by  paper, 
and  instead  of  the  "Banke"  the 
mint  was  brought  into  operation 
two  years  later. 

The  most  notable  of  the  earlier 
colonial  schemes  for  a  paper  cur- 
rency was  that  worked  out  by  Gov- 
ernor John  Winthrop  of  Connecti- 
cut. Winthrop  possessed  a  copy  of 
Potter's  "Key  to  Wealth,"  and  had 
studied  it,  and  the  problems  with 
which  it  dealt  most  assiduously.  In 
1661,  in  correspondence  with  Sam- 
uel Hartlib  of  the  Royal  Society 
of  England,  he  submitted  a  plan  for 
"a  way  of  trade  and  banke  w***out 
mony,"  which  was  received  with 
great  interest,  and  even  no  little 
enthusiasm  by  the  best  economists 
of  England.  Winthrop  at  first 
made  it  appear  that  the  scheme  was 
that  of  an  anonymous  friend,  rather 
than  his  own,  but  there  is  every 
reason  to  believe  that,  aside  from 
suggestions  derived  from  Potter's 
book,  the  plan  was  wholly  original 
with  the  shrewd  New  England  gov- 
ernor. The  details  of  Winthrop's 
scheme  are  not  as  clearly  undefr- 
stood  as  we  might  wish.  It  appears 
that   he    favored   a    currency    which 


would  possess  something  of  the 
credit  and  expansive  power  of  mod- 
ern paper  money,  but  without  be- 
ing conv€frtible  into  specie.  In  or- 
der that  the  proposed  currency 
should  have  an  obvious  value  and  cir- 
culate freely  it  was  to  be  based  on 
land,  or  perhaps  certain  other  forms 
of  property.  Not  even  Winthrop  yet 
understood  that  only  by  providing  for 
the  redemption  of  such  currency  in 
gold  and  silver  could  it  be  sustained 
in  the  confidence  of  the  people.  Win- 
throp's well-known  shrewdness,  hon- 
esty and  common  sense  commended 
his  carefully  guarded  recommenda- 
tions to  the  magnates  of  Lombard 
Street,  and  probably  on  the  whole  no 
ideas  had  yet  come  out  of  the  New 
World  which  created  as  much  of  a  stir 
in  Europe  as  did  those  of  the  Con- 
necticut governor  regarding  the  Bank 
of  Lands  and  Commodities. 

Three  years  after  the  publication  of 
Winthrop's  plan  for  a  paper  currency 
the  Rev.  John  Woodbridge  made  an 
attempt  to  interest  some  influential 
merchants  of  New  England  in  a  proj- 
ect for  "erecting  a  Fund  of  Land,  by 
Authority,  or  Private  Persons,  in  the 
Nature  of  a  Money-Bank  or  Mer- 
chandise-Lumber"; but  no  practical 
result  followed.  In  167 1  a  private 
bank  of  credit  was  actually  established 
in  Boston,  and  for  several  months 
managed  to  maintain  a  considerable 
business,  though  it  did  not  issue  bills. 
In  1681  a  similar  experiment  was 
made,  this  time  including  an  issue  of 
bills,  but  without  much  success. 
Neither  of  these  pseudo  banks  was 
recognized  by  the  Government.  In 
1686  a  "Bank  of  Credit  Lumbard  and 
Exchange  of  Moneys  by  Persons  of 


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776  PAPER  MONEY  IN   THE   NEW   ENGLAND   COLONIES 


approved  Integrity"  was  authorized 
by  President  Dudley  cm  account  of 
"the  great  decay  of  trade,  obstruc- 
tions to  manufactures  and  commerce 
in  this  Country,  and  multiplicity  of 
debts  and  suits  thereupon,  principally 
occasioned  by  the  present  scarcity  of 
coyne."  This  project  was  likewise 
short  lived. 

By  1690  it  had  been  demonstrated 
repeatedly  that  paper  currency  issued 
under  private  auspices  was  a  failure, 
and  that  if  such  currency  was  to  be 
at  all  practicable  it  must  be  devised 
and  managed  by  the  Government.  In 
that  year  the  situation  in  Massachu- 
setts became  particularly  serious.  Sir 
William  Phipps,  soon  to  be  the  gover- 
nor of  the  colony,  had  just  returned 
from  an  unsuccessful  expedition 
against  Quebec,  and  with  him  a  large 
band  of  discontented  soldiers,  who,  in 
lieu  of  the  plunder  they  had  counted 
upon  getting  in  the  French  capital, 
now  clamored  loudly  for  pay  from  the 
Massachusetts  Government.  The  treas- 
ury was  in  no  condition  to  warrant 
such  an  outlay,  there  being  almost 
no  coin  and  but  limited  quantities  of 
country  pay  at  its  disposal.  By  al- 
most half  a  century  of  discussion, 
accompanied  by  several  practical  ex- 
periments, the  people  of  the  colony 
had  become  inoculated  with  the  credit 
money  idea ;  so  that  when  the  colonial 
government  found  itself  with  a  war 
debt  of  £  50,000  on  its  hands  and  no 
means  with  which  to  pay,  it  was  but 
natural  that  it  should  resort  to  the 
still  by  no  means  discredited  scheme 
of  a  paper  currency.  Accordingly, 
on  the  tenth  of  December,  1690,  the 
General  Court  issued  the  first  £7,000 
of   bills   of   credit   in   denominations 


from  five  shillings  to  five  pounds.  In 
doing  so  it  declared,  by  way  of  justi- 
fication, that  "the  present  poverty  and 
calamities  of  the  country,  and  through 
the  scarcity  of  money  the  want  of  an 
adequate  measure  of  commerce,"  ren- 
dered such  a  course  absolutely  un- 
avoidable. Twenty-two  years  after- 
wards Judge  Sewall  in  his  diary  took 
occasion  to  dispute  this  necessity.  By 
1 712  the  Massachusetts  paper  money 
had  greatly  depreciated,  and  in  op- 
posing the  issuing  of  any  more  of  it. 
Judge  Sewall  declared  that  the  first 
issue  had  been  not  "for  want  of 
money,"  but  "for  want  of  money  in 
the  treasury" — probably  a  just  obser- 
vation, although  certainly  money  was 
then  very  scarce  outside  as  well  as  in- 
side the  coffers  of  the  state. 

It  would  be  obviously  unfair 
to  expect  the  originators  of  the 
the  scheme  in  1690  to  have  foreseen 
the  calamities  and  disasters  which 
were  to  follow  the  issuing  of  the 
credit  money.  From  the  very  begin- 
ning the  bills  began  to  depreciate.  It 
was  easy  to  print  "This  indented  Bill 
of  Ten  Shillings  due  from  the  Massa- 
chusetts Colony  to  the  Possessor  shall 
be  in  value  equal  to  money";  but  it 
was  an  entirely  different  matter  to 
make  the  legend  mean  literally  what 
it  said  in  the  marts  of  trade,  as  many 
a  man  found  to  his  sorrow.  In  1692 
the  General  Court  passed  an  act  by 
which  the  bills  were  made  current  for 
all  transactions,  and  allowing  a  bonus 
of  five  per  cent  upon  them  when  paid 
into  the  public  treasury.  This  latter 
premium  served  to  keep  them  for 
twenty  years  at  par  with  coin,  so  far 
as  the  payment  of  taxes  and  other 
public    obligations    were    concerned. 


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During  the  years  1690  and  1691  the 
amount  of  paper  issued  was  £40,000; 
between  1^692  and  1702,  about  £110,- 
000.  The  decade  following  1702  saw 
at  least  £  194,950  more  "made  and  re- 
ceived into  the  treasury  of  Massachu- 
setts." 

The  example  of  Massachusetts 
proved  contagious.  Other  colonies 
were  no  less  in  need  of  a  more  ample 
currency,  and  no  less  ready  to  adopt 
any  sort  of  scheme  which  could  give 
promise  of  relief.  By  171 2  New 
Hampshire,  Rhode  Island,  and  Con- 
necticut, besides  New  York,  New  Jer- 
sey, North  Carolina,  and  South  Caro- 
lina outside  New  England,  had  issued 
various  quantities  of  bills  of  credit, 
mainly  to  aid  in  defraying  the  ex- 
penses of  Queen  Anne's  War.  But 
though  in  these  colonies,  as  in  Massa- 
chusetts, the  first  steps  in  the  creation 
of  a  fiat  money  were  rendered  appar- 
ently inevitable  by  the  exigencies  of 
war,  it  quickly  became  the  custom  to 
meet  the  ordinary  expenses  of  govern- 
ment simply  by  new  issues  of  bills. 
This  mode  of  relief  from  financial 
stringency  was  for  a  while  so  easy 
that  not  one  of  the  colonies  saved 
itself  from  falling  before  the  tempta- 
tion. There  was  but  one  great  diffi- 
culty— the  same  which  must  eventu- 
ally ruin  every  such  delusive  system 
of  public  finance — and  that  was  the 
depreciation  of  the  new  currency  by 
reason  of  the  lack  of  faith  of  the  peo- 
ple in  it.  In  every  colony  the  increase 
of  the  quantity  of  the  paper  money 
was  attended  by  just  as  marked  a  de- 
preciation of  its  value  and  purchasing 
power.  As  Mr.  Bullock  says  in  a  re- 
cent essay,  "Sooner  or  later  all  the 
plantations  were   deeply   involved   in 


the  mazes  of  a  fluctuating  currency, 
for  the  burdens  attending  the  various 
wars  of  the  eighteenth  century  were 
so  great  as  to  induce  even  the  most 
conservative  colonies  to  resort  to  this 
easy  method  of  meeting  public  obli- 
gations." Virginia  was  the  last  to 
yield  to  the  pressure,  having  resisted 
successfully  until  1755. 

The  wisdom  or  folly  with  which  the 
paper  currency  was  managed  varied 
greatly  in  the  different  colonies.  In 
Connecticut,  for  example,  the  mis- 
chief was  not  so  great.  Though 
£33,500  in  all  were  emitted  in  that 
colony,  the  issues  were  prudently 
guarded  and  eventually  the  entire 
amount  was  redeemed  by  the  state  at 
almost  its  face  value.  On  the  other 
hand,  Rhode  Island's  experience  with 
paper  money  was  in  the  highest  de- 
gree discreditable.  The  history  of  the 
paper  currency  of  that  colony  during 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century' 
can  hardly  be  paralleled  for  reckless- 
ness in  all  the  annals  of  finance.  In  a 
general  way  the  evils  attending  the 
currency  were  the  same  in  all  the 
colonies,  varying  only  in  intensity. 
In  every  case  there  were  numerous 
good  resolutions  not  to  plunge  too 
deeply  into  the  sea  of  credit,  but  the 
pressure  of  expenditures  generally 
subverted  these  resolutions  sooner  or 
later.  After  bills  had  been  issued  for 
the  meeting  of  current  expenses  or 
war  levies  taxes  were  generally 
assessed  with  a  view  to  redeeming  the 
paper  in  the  near  future.  Subse- 
quent assemblies,  however,  would  be 
strongly  tempted  to  prolong  the  period 
during  which  the  paper  money  should 
be  current,  and  before  redemption  had 
occurred  a  new  issue  might  be  d^ 


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PAPER   MONEY  IN  THE  NEW  ENGLAND   COLONIES 


manded  by  conditions  arising.  Leg- 
islative resolutions  that  the  bills  in  cir- 
culation should  not  exceed  a  certain 
quantity  usually  went  for  nothing  in 
the  end.  Says  Bullock:  "Laws  were 
often  passed  providing  for  the  emis- 
sion of  new  bills  to  replace  worn  or 
mutilated  issues.  Then  the  new  money 
would  frequently  be  placed  in  circula- 
tion without  withdrawing  and  can- 
celling the  old,  while  bills  that  had 
been  withdrawn  for  the  original 
purpose  of  destroying  them  would 
often  be  re-issued  for  current  ex- 
penses." 

One  of  the  gravest  evils  connected 
with  paper  money  in  colonial  times 
was  the  baleful  influence  which  it 
exerted  on  politics.  The  debtor 
classes  uniformly  favored  large  issues 
of  paper,  and  were  not  slow  to  resort 
to  political  agitation  to  secure  them. 
This  was  because  excessive  issues 
raised  prices  and  depreciated  still 
further  the  money.  The  depreciated 
money  could  then  be  used  in  the  pay- 
ing of  debts,  and  thus  the  burden  of 
all  debts  be  lightened.  As  a  recent 
writer  has  said,  "From  1710  to  1789 
the  political  history  of  most  of  the 
colonies  was  blackened  by  the  most 
bitter  contests  of  dishonest  debtors  to 
secure  an  abundance  of  cheap  money. 
Elections  often  turned  wholly  upon 
this  issue,  and  the  lower  houses  of  the 
colonial  legislatures  were  often  con- 
trolled by  a  body  of  insolvent  debt- 
ors." Another  very  obvious  evil 
which  accompanied  the  use  of  the  cur- 
rency was  that  of  counterfeiting.  The 
bills  were  generally  simple  and  easily 
imitated;  at  first  many  of  them  were 
merely  written  with  a  pen,  not  printed. 
Counterfeiting   seems    to   have   been 


especially  common  in  New  Hamp- 
shire. On  one  occasion,  in  1765,  £95 
in  counterfeit  bills  were  biyned  cere- 
moniously in  the  presence  of  the  As- 
sembly. At  another  time  the  counter- 
feiters got  possession  of  a  supply  of 
unfilled  blanks  of  currency  left  over 
from  the  recent  printing,  and  were 
at  liberty  to  fill  them  as  they  chose. 
In  1730  the  punishment  for  counter- 
feiting in  Pennsylvania  was  death, 
but  even  this  severe  penalty  did  not 
greatly  lessen  the  frequency  of  the 
crime. 

In  Massachusetts  in  171 2  the  bills 
of  credit  were  made  legal  tender  for 
the  payment  of  all  debts.  This  was 
not  done  formally  in  all  of  the  colo- 
nies, but  in  most  of  them  they  were 
given  a  forced  circulation  which  was 
practically  equivalent.  Heavy  penal- 
ties in  the  nature  of  fines,  imprison- 
ment, and  forfeiture  of  property  were 
imposed  upon  men  who  should  be  so 
skeptical  and  unpatriotic  as  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  bills  and  coin. 
In  the  end,  as  might  be  supposed, 
these  extreme  laws  only  operated  to 
increase  the  popular  distrust. 

The  appetite  for  paper  money  grew 
by  what  it  fed  on.  The  financial  bur- 
dens of  the  colonies  in  the  first  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century  were  both 
numerous  and  heavy,  and  the  com- 
plaint of  a  scarcity  of  money  was 
perennial.  One  issue  of  bills  only  cre- 
ated a  demand  for  the  next.  Not  only 
the  outbreak  of  war  with  the  French 
or  Indians,  but  also  the  maintenance 
of  trade,  the  construction  of  public 
buildingfs  and  fortifications,  and  even 
the  paying  of  the  officials'  salaries, 
were  made  occasions  for  setting  the 
printing  presses  to  work.    Surely,  as 


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one  writer  has  pointed  out,  the  ex- 
perience of  the  colonies  demonstrates 
conclusively  the  impossibility  of  satis- 
fying the  desire  for  "more  money"  by 
issuing  a  paper  currency.  In  1720  the 
derangement  of  finances  in  Massachu- 
setts was  such  that  it  was  found  nec- 
essary to  return  to  the  old  system  of 
making  farm  produce  legal  tender, 
and  the  General  Court  fixed  the  rates 
at  which  the  treasury  should  receive 
wheat,  com,  cheese,  butter,  beef,  hides, 
dried  fish,  and  other  commodities  of 
the  sort.  The  inconveniences  of  this 
arrangement  were  such,  however,  that 
after  three  years  it  was  abandoned.  In 
order  to  supply  the  demand  for  small 
change  bills  were  then  issued  of  the 
denomination  of  two  and  three  pence, 
and  a  few  of  even  one  penny.  The 
penny  was  round  in  shape,  the  two- 
pence square,  and  the  three-pence 
angular.  In  1728  £340  was  issued 
in  this  fractional  currency,  and  two 
years  later  £380  more. 

After  1720  the  depreciation  of  Mas- 
sachusetts paper  was  very  rapid.  In 
1741  Governor  Shirley  stated  in  his 
message  to  the  L^islature :  "A  cred- 
itor who  has  the  misfortune  of  having 
an  outstanding  debt  of  the  value  of 
i,  1,000  sterling,  contracted  anno 
1730,  can  now  receive  no  more  in  our 
courts  of  judicature  than  the  value  of 
about  £600  sterling."  Losses  on  in- 
vestments were  correspondingly  fre- 
quent. Persons  and  institutions  who 
accepted  considerable  quantities  of 
paper  and  retained  it  long  found  its 
value  greatly  diminished.  It  is  said 
that  Harvard  College  lost  £10,000 
in  this  way,  and  at  a  time  when  such 
a  loss  was  grievous  indeed.  By  1749 
a  Massachusetts  paper  bill  could  be 


made  to  pass  for  not  more  than  one- 
eleventh  of  its  face  value. 

But  happily  the  evil  had  about  run 
its  course  and  many  of  the  colonies, 
perceiving  the  direful  condition  into 
which  they  were  falling,  began  to 
make  heroic  efforts  to  throw  off  the 
incubus  that  was  fairly  crushing  out 
their  life.  With  justice,  Massachu- 
setts, who  had  led  in  instituting  the 
dubious  system,  now  led  in  seeking 
extrication  from  it.  And  just  as  an 
expedition  against  the  French  Cana- 
dians had  occasioned  the  issue  of  the 
first  bills,  so  another  such  undertak- 
ing contributed  directly  to  the  colony's 
relief  from  them.  In  1745  Massachu- 
setts had  incurred  great  expense  in 
the  siege  and  capture  of  Louisburg, 
and  the  taking  of  that  stronghold  had 
been  regarded  as  the  greatest  military 
achievement  yet  known  in  America. 
But  when  peace  was  made  at  Aix-la- 
Chapelle  in  1748  all  the  English  con- 
quests in  America  were  returned  to 
the  French.  The  chagrin  and  resent- 
ment of  the  colonists  at  such  a  disre- 
gard of  their  labors  were  very  strong, 
and  a  son-in-law  of  Governor  Shirley 
by  the  name  of  William  Bollan  was 
dispatched  to  London  to  plead  the 
cause  of  the  New  Englanders  and 
ask  for  some  substantial  recognition 
of  their  services  in  the  late  conflict. 
As  a  result  of  Bollan's  efforts  Par- 
liament at  length  agreed  to  reimburse 
the  colonists  for  the  expenses  of  the 
si^e,  and  the  sum  of  £183,600  (or 
653,000  ounces  of  silver  and  10  tons 
of  copper)  was  paid  them.  The 
money  reached  Boston  late  in  1749 — 
217  chests  of  Spanish  dollars  and  100 
casks  of  copper  coin.  It  was  carted 
up  King  Street  to  the  treasury  with 


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PAPER  MONEY  IN   THE   NEW   ENGLAND   COLONIES 


considerable  ceremony  and  was  indeed 
"the  harbinger  of  a  new  prosperity." 
Never  before  had  the  colony  had  such 
a  quantity  of  coin  at  its  disposal.  Due 
largely  to  the  efforts  of  Thomas 
Hutchinson,  the  Assembly,  of  which 
he  was  speaker,  decided  to  devote  the 
specie  to  the  redemption  of  the  depre- 
ciated paper  currency,  of  which  there 
was  now  in  circulation  about  £2,000,- 
000.  As  early  as  1740  Hutchinson 
had  distinguished  himself  in  the  As- 
sembly by  advocating  that  the  colony 
borrow  220,000  ounces  of  gold  in 
England  with  which  to  redeem  the 
colonial  paper,  but  the  plan  had  not 
commended  itself  generally  to  the 
legislators.  When,  however,  the 
specie  was  actually  in  hand,  the  proj- 
ect of  retiring  the  obnoxious  paper 
was  received  with  general  favor.  The 
rate  of  redemption  varied  according 
as  the  credit  currency  was  "old  tenor," 
"middle  tenor,"  or  "new  tenor."  It 
ranged  from  about  seven  and  a  half 
pounds  paper  to  one  pound  specie  to 
ten  pounds  paper  to  one  pound  specie. 
By  1751  nine-tenths  of  the  total 
amount  of  paper  had  been  covered. 
A  tax  was  then  levied  to  cover  the  re- 
maining tenth.  About  £1,800,000  in 
bills  was  presented  for  redemption, 
the  rest  having  been  lost  or  destroyed. 
Rhode  Island  and  New  Hampshire 
had  had  a  part  in  the  capture  of 
Louisburg,  and  so  were  allowed  a 
share  of  the  specie  with  which  the 
English  government  rewarded  the 
victors.  Massachusetts  used  her  in- 
fluence strongly  to  induce  these  two 
colonies  in  which  the  paper  money 
craze  had  run  to  its  greatest  excess  to 
utilize  the  specie  for  the  redemption 
of    the    worthless    currency.      Rhode 


Island's  share  was  £6,322,  and  with 
this  she  could  at  least  have  made  a 
fair  beginning  at  the  good  work.  But 
with  her  customary  shortsightedness 
in  financial  matters  she  preferred  to 
use  the  money  in  other  ways,  and, 
having  missed  this  opportunity,  was 
destined  to  suffer  yet  a  long  while 
from  her  depreciated  paper  and  result- 
ant restrictions  of  trade.  New 
Hampshire  followed  the  same  dubious 
course.  Although  it  appears  that  the 
removal  of  the  paper  from  circulation 
in  Massachusetts  caused  some  tem- 
porary inconvenience,  in  the  end  the 
step  proved  to  have  been  the  wisest 
one  possible.  By  the  re-establishment 
of  a  specie  currency  financial  confi- 
dence was  restored,  trade  was  bet- 
tered, and  industry  stimulated.  The 
ports  of  Massachusetts  rapidly  out- 
stripped those  of  Rhode  Island  in  the 
control  of  the  West  Indian  trade  and 
the  smaller  colony  paid  a  heavy  pen- 
alty for  her  recklessness  in  money 
matters.  Connecticut  eventually  pro- 
vided for  the  redemption  of  her  paper 
currency,  and  still  later  New  Hamp- 
shire made  a  similar  arrangement  for 
at  least  a  part  of  her  large  credit 
issues. 

The  paper  money  system  was 
brought  under  closer  limitations  in 
the  colonies  after  the  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  not  only  by  reason 
of  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  colonists 
with  it,  but  also  because  of  opposition 
on  part  of  the  English  Government. 
In  England  the  credit  craze  reached 
its  climax  early  in  the  century  and 
thereafter  men  were  disposed  to  be 
considerably  more  conservative.  Many 
times  the  merchants,  who  not  infre- 
quently lost  heavily  by  the  irregulari- 


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781 


ties  of  the  colonial  money,  appealed  to 
Parliament  to  interfere  in  the  extrava- 
gant creation  of  currencies  in  Amer- 
ica. In  1720  the  governors  of  all  the 
colonies  were  instructed  to  veto  every 
measure  having  for  its  purpose  the  in- 
flation of  the  paper  currency,  and 
such  instructions  were  reiterated  time 
and  again  during  the  years  all  the  way 
down  to  the  Revolution.  The  result 
was  a  long  and  wearisome  series  of 
conflicts  between  the  executives  and 
the  popular  assemblies.  In  Massa- 
chusetts on  one  occasion  the  Legisla- 
ture refused  to  allow  the  governor's 
salary  until  he  should  consent  to  the 
emission  of  bills;  while  in  South 
Girolina  there  was  a  legislative  dead- 
lock for  four  years  caused  by  a  sim- 
ilar issue.  In  not  a  few  cases  the 
governors  were  bribed  into  consenting 
to  the  emission  of  currency,  and  the 
evil  became  so  great  that  in  1751  Par- 
liament endeavored  to  end  it  once  for 
all  by  passing  an  act  prohibiting  any 
of  the  New  England  colonies  from  is- 
suing bills  of  credit  and  making  them 
legal  tender,  though  allowing  the 
emitting  of  treasury  notes  redeemable 
within  short  periods  and  not  forced 
into  circulation.  Thirteen  years  later 
similar  legislation  was  enacted  for  the 
middle  and  southern  colonies. 

This  restriction  was,  of  course,  en- 
tirely righteous,  but  it  was  bitterly 
denounced  by  the  colonists,  who  con- 
sidered it  "destructive  of  the  liberties 
and  properties  of  his  Majesty's  sub- 
jects." Probably  by  1751  a  very  large 
majority  of  New  Englanders  had 
come  to  regard  paper  money  as  an 
evil,  even  if  a  necessary  one,  but  they 
were  already  too  jealous  of  Parlia- 
mentary authority  to  welcome  a  rem- 


edy, however  effectual  it  might  prove 
to  be,  emanating  from  that  source. 
Seven  years  before,  when  Parliament 
had  been  meditating  the  step  taken 
in  1751,  the  New  York  assembly  had 
spoken  for  all  the  colonies  by  resolv- 
ing that  such  a  measure  would  be  a 
violation  of  the  constitution  of  Great 
Britain,  incompatible  with  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  Englishmen,  and  like- 
ly to  subject  America  to  the  absolute 
will  of  the  mother  country.  The  law 
of  1764,  coming  as  it  did  just  at  the 
time  that  the  Stamp  Act  issue  was 
raging,  aroused  still  more  bitter  re- 
sentment. The  colonists  knew  that  its 
purpose  was  wise,  but  under  the  cir- 
cumstances nothing  could  have  in- 
duced them  to  admit  it.  In  1766, 
when  Franklin  was  being  examined 
before  the  House  of  Commons,  he 
stated  it  as  his  sincere  opinion  that 
one  very  important  reason  for  the  dis- 
satisfaction and  contempt  with  which 
Parliamentary  orders  had  lately  been 
received  in  the  colonies  was  the  "pro- 
hibition of  making  paper  money." 
From  this  and  other  evidence  it  would 
appear  that  Parliament's  interference 
with  the  colonial  currencies  should 
have  a  place  in  every  list  of  causes  of 
the  American  Revolution.  It  is  easy 
to  say  that  sound  money  should  be 
maintained  at  every  hazard  and  that 
no  people  under  the  sovereignty  of  a 
great  commercial  state  should  be  al- 
lowed to  reduce  their  own  finances  to 
a  hopeless  chaos  and  at  the  same  time 
blight  the  trade  which  every  other 
power  may  desire  to  maintain  with 
them,  f'rom  this  point  of  view  the 
course  of  Parliament  in  restricting 
the  colonial  paper  currencies  was  en- 
tirely justifiable.     At  the  same  time 


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PAPER  MONEY  IN   THE  NEW   ENGLAND   COLONIES 


the  whole  attitude  of  the  English 
government  toward  the  American 
colonies  was  characterized  by  a  spirit 
of  selfishness  and  parsimony  which 
robs  the  anti-paper-money  laws  of 
much  of  their  seeming  innocence. 
That  the  colonies  had  been  forced  to 
the  expedient  of  fiat  currency  in  the 
first  place  had  been  due  in  no  small 
measure  to  the  failure  of  the  King 
and  Parliament  to  look  out  for  the 
economic  interests  of  their  American 
dependents.  When  men  on  the  fron- 
tier lines  of  civilization  have  but  little 
specie,  and  find  themselves  utterly  un- 
able to  keep  that  which  they  have,  they 
invariably  turn  to  some  form  of  paper 
money  for  relief — unless  perchance 
they  are  fortunate  enough  to  repose 
under  the  patronage  of  a  state  rich 
enough  and  wise  enough  to  make 
some  other  and  better  provision  for 
their  needs.  This  principle  should 
have  been  understood  and  acted  upon 
by  the  English  government  long  be- 
fore the  colonies  fell  into  the  condi- 
tion which  demanded  such  remedial 
measures  as  those  of  1751  and  1764. 
It  is  inconceivable  that  even  the  most 
insignificant  part  of  the  British  Em- 
pire to-day  should  fall  into  such 
straits.  The  great  difficulty  was,  of 
course,  that  during  the  first  half  of 
the  eighteenth  century  England  her- 
self was  carried  as  far  adrift  by  the 
credit  craze  as  were  any  of  her  colo- 
nies^ and  she  was  in  no  position  to  play 
the  physician  until  she  had  been  cured 
at  least  in  part  of  her  own  financial 
distemper.  A  strong  and  wealthy  na- 
tion, such  as  England  was,  may 
recover  with  comparative  ease  from 
such  a  misadventure;  substantial  re- 


sources remain  upon  which  to  fall 
back.  Frontier  colonies,  however, 
find  relief  with  no  such  facility.  After 
resolutions  and  threats  and  legislation 
have  been  directed  against  credit  and 
fiat,  conditions  stand  about  as  they 
were  before.  Specie  does  not  exist, 
barter  will  not  suffice,  taxes  and 
salaries  must  be  paid,  commodities 
must  be  exchanged — no  course  is 
open  save  to  devise  and  evade  and 
contrive  once  more  to  bring  back, 
under  some  new  guise,  the  credit 
currency  which  all  have  agreed 
in  denouncing  as  the  very  ^^t^  ^oir 
of  the  whole  world  of  finance  and 
trade. 

The  law  of  1751  accomplished  its 
primary  purpose  in  that  it  put  an  end 
very  effectually  to  the  issuing  of  legal 
tender  bills  in  the  New  England 
colonies.  Yet  it  by  no  means  placed 
paper  currency  under  the  restrictions 
that  had  been  contemplated  by  its 
authors.  The  law  permitted  the  issue 
of  treasury  notes,  provided  only  they 
be  redeemable  at  the  end  of  short 
periods  and  be  not  forced  into  circu- 
lation. The  New  Englanders  were 
not  slow  to  take  every  possible  advan- 
tage of  the  privileges  thus  allowed, 
and  paper  money  in  the  form  of  treas- 
ury notes,  "orders,"  or  bills  with  still 
other  names,  continued  to  be  more  or 
less  common  throughout  the  re- 
mainder of  the  colonial  period.  The 
issues  were  guarded  with  reason- 
able care,  however,  and  it  was  not 
until  the  days  of  the  notorious  "con- 
tinental currency"  that  the  evils  of  a 
depreciated  credit  money  were  again 
to  be  a  really  serious  strain  upon  the 
fortunes  of  the  colonies. 


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Unpublished  Whittier  Poems 

Verses  by  John  Greenleaf  Whittier  which  Do  Not  Appear 
in  His  Published  Works 

"THE  VESTAL" 


THE  story  of  John  Greenleaf 
Whittier's  early  life  can 
never  be  too  often  reviewed. 
Bom  in  1807  in  a  New 
England  village,  he  had  no  oppor- 
tunity for  study  save  that  which  the 
district  school  afforded  during  three 
or  four  months  of  each  year,  until  he 
was  twenty,  when  he  attended  two 
six  months'  sessions  of  the  Haverhill 
Academy.  This  was  all  the  schooling 
that  he  ever  had.  The  necessary 
money  for  the  tuition  he  earned  by 
making  slippers  at  eight  cents  a  pair. 

From  the  time  that  his  sister  Mary 
secretly  sent  one  of  his  poems  to  Wil- 
liam Lloyd  Garrison,  then  editor  of 
the  Free  Press  of  Newburyport,  who 
at  once  recognized  its  value  and 
printed  it,  Whittier  seems  never  to 
have  had  any  difficulty  in  getting  his 
manuscripts  accepted,  although  for 
the  hundred  or  more  poems  which 
were  printed  in  the  Haverhill  Gazette 
during  his  two  years'  studentship  in 
the  academy,  he  received  no  remunera- 
tion, and  for  many  years  he  had  no 
idea  of  being  able  to  live  by  his  pen. 

After  he  left  school  he  became  edi- 
tor of  Collier's  Manufacturing  MagOr 
sine  in  Boston.  Here  he  met  men  and 
women  of  culture  and  letters,  and  the 
first  shyness  and  awkwardness  of  the 
country  boy  was  rubbed  oflE  in  the 
midst  of  congenial  friends.  Here,  too, 
he  formed  his  first  interest  in  politics, 
and    through    his    editorials    became 


known  as  a  strong  supporter  of  Henry 
Clay,  which  led  later  to  his  assuming 
the  editorship  of  the  New  England 
Review  of  Hartford,  the  leading  party 
paper  of  Connecticut. 

In  Hartford  the  shy  boy  became  a 
popular  young  man,  and  joined  in 
much  of  the  gaiety  of  the  young 
people  of  the  best  families.  After 
eighteen  months  of  pleasure  as  well 
as  hard  work,  he  was  called  home  by 
the  illness  of  his  father,  and  carried 
with  him  a  wounded  heart.  Each  new 
phase  of  his  life  had  a  marked  effect 
upon  his  poetry,  and  in  assuming 
again  the  cares  of  the  farm,  with  re- 
gret for  the  pleasures  past  and  a  never 
very  strong  constitution,  it  is  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  he  passed  through 
a  period  of  despondency  which  tem- 
pered his  writings  to  a  note  of  sadness 
and  tragedy.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  he  wrote  the  poem  printed  here- 
with. 

It  is  the  amplification  of  an  old 
Roman  Legend  of  the  Temple  of 
Vesta,  and  it  is  interesting  to  find 
seventy-five  years  later  the  same 
legend  worked  out  by  F.  Marion 
Crawford  in  his  last  year's  novel, 
"Cecelia." 

We  print  "The  Vestal"  not  as  the 
best  of  Whittier's  poems,  but  as  an  ex- 
ample of  his  youthful  style,  which, 
though  crude,  shows  that  power  of 
beautiful  description  which  is  so 
uniquely  his. 


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The  Vestal 

By  John  G.  Whittier 

NIGHT  on  the  seven  hill  city.     The  pure  moon, 
Beautiful  in  the  sky  of  Italy, 
Through  the  unclouded  dwelling  of  the  stars 
Was  moving  like  a  spirit.     There  was  light 
Holier  than  sunshine,  on  the  city's  wall, 
And  on  the  Coliseum,  and  the  towers, 
That  frowned  upon  the  Tiber,  and  gave  out 
Their  eagles  to  the  splendor,  and  the  tall 
Magnificence  of  temples,  consecrate 
To  the  old  gods  of  worship ;   statelier 
In  the  solemnity  of  night  arose 
The  birthplace  of  the  Numae ;  and  beneath 
Its  shade  imperial,  queenly  Tiber  ran. 
With  all  its  wealth  of  moonlight  to  the  sea. 

Silence  was  over  all,  save  where  the  chant 

Of  worshippers  went  upward  with  a  cloud 

Of  idol  incense ;   or  the  soldier's  mail 

Clanked  harsh  from  some  guarded  battlement. 

Even  as  a  sound  of  warfare.     Beautiful, 

But  silent  as  a  sepulchre,  arose 

The  Temple  of  the  Vestal,  where  undimmed 

Burned  on  the  eternal  fire,  beneath  the  eye 

Of  the  appointed  watcher  of  that  hour. 

She  leaned  against  the  gorgeous  pillar  wrought 

With  most  unwonted  workmanship ;   the  flame 

Burned  in  the  distance,  and  the  moonlight  fell 

Through  the  transparent  arching  of  the  roof 

In  glory  round  her  form,  revealing  all 

Its  exquisite  proportions,  for  the  robe 

Which  veiled  her  young,  but  ripened  beauty,  seemed 

Light  as  if  woven  by  a  fairy's  hand. 

Of  texture  borrowed  of  the  moonlight  air. 

Oh,  she  was  passing  fair ;  Pygmalion 

Woke  not  a  lovelier  into  breathing  life 

From  the  cold  shape  of  his  idolatry. 

Her  brow  was  as  a  white  scroll  lifted  up 

To  the  dark  outline  of  her  clustering  hair, 


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THE  VESTAL  785 

Most  eloquent  with  thought.     Her  eye  was  dark, 

Yet  tempered  with  the  softness  of  her  clime. 

Its  long  lash  seemed  to  slumber ;   and  her  cheek 

Blushed  with  passionate  coloring  of  thought, 

Like  a  white  cloud  at  sunset.     She  had  turned 

With  an  habitual  reverence  to  the  shrine 

Now  dim,  and  now  uplighted  as  a  flame 

Swayed  in  the  night  air,  that  came  winding 

Through  the  long  array  of  columns ;  but  her  thoughts 

Had  wandered  from  their  trust,  and  her  young  heart 

Was  beating  with  another  feeling  now 

Than  that  of  meek  devotion.     Ye  may  bind 

The  light  form  of  the  beautiful,  and  veil 

The  features  of  her  loveliness ;   her  knee 

May  bend  obsequious, — her  lips  may  kiss 

The  symbol  of  strange  worship, —  but  the  heart — 

The  young  and  dreaming  heart,  ye  may  not  bind 

Nor  fetter  down  its  pulses.     There  will  come 

Thoughts  and  revealments  of  a  happier  state, 

Upon  her  life's  slow  martyrdom,  and  dreams 

Will  pass  before  her,  glorious  from  the  world 

Of  woman's  ardent  fancy.     She  will  turn 

From  the  cold  vow  and  mockery  of  prayer. 

Back  to  the  freedom  of  her  early  years ; 

And  the  long  treasured  image  of  love 

Will  rise  at  memory's  bidding  from  the  past. 

Like  a  spirit  answering  to  the  enchanter's  call. 

Beautiful  Vestal,  in  that  chastened  light. 

Thrown  like  a  robe  around  her,  she  had  leaned. 

Until  the  moonlight's  coming.     She  had  gone 

Out  on  the  wings  of  fancy,  and  her  thoughts 

Had  lost  their  hue  of  worship,  and  her  glance, 

No  longer  fixed  upon  the  smoking  flame, 

Grew  wandering  and  restless. 

Whose  tall  form 
Is  stealing  towards  her,  noiseless  as  the  shade 
Of  the  old  pillars,  shrouded  in  the  garb 
Of  Vesta's  virgins?     Does  a  sister  come. 
To  cheer  her  lonely  vigils,  and  to  kneel 
Beside  her  at  the  altar?     Wherefore,  then, 
Burns  her  dark  eye  so  wildly?     Wherefore  steals 


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786  THE  VESTAL 

Unwonted  crimson  on  her  young  cheek, 

And  down  upon  a  bosom  beating  high 

With  quick  emotion  !     Ha !'  the  stranger  kneels. 

But  not  before  the  idol-flame — the  veil 

Falls  at  the  gesture;  and  the  high  marked  brow 

And  the  proud  lip  of  manhood  are  revealed. 

Spirits  who  bend  from  the  white  throne  of  clouds, 

Or  on  the  delicate  star- way  wander  down 

To  the  dull  earth,  behold  ye  aught  beneath 

The  beautiful  world  of  your  inheritance 

So  eloquent  of  rapture  as  the  scene 

Of  love's  first  stolen  meeting,  when  the  heart, 

Which  long  has  kept  its  burning  secret,  pours 

The  offering  of  a  free  affection  out, 

Lavish  and  as  lovely  as  the  flowers  that  pile 

The  sun-lit  shrines  of  old  idolaters  ? 

Morning  was  over  Italy.     The  sun 

Burned  on  the  Adriatic,  and  its  waves 

Wandered  like  golden  messengers  along 

Dalmatia's  borders ;  and  the  mist  that  hung 

Over  the  dark,  old  Apennines,  became 

As  golden  helmets  binding  the  swart  brows 

Of  marshalled  giants,  kindling  from  afar 

The  beautiful  islands  of  the  circling  sea — 

Italia's  children — started  into  light. 

The  vapour  spirit  drew  his  curtain  up 

From  all  their  streams,  and  green  hills  of  vine 

Tossed  their  dark  foliage  to  the  summer  sun. 

Then  was  a  flood  of  pleasant  sunlight  poured  1 

Through  the  long  arches,  where  the  moon  had  thrown 

Her  milder  gift  upon  the  temple  floor, 

And  round  the  Vestal  shrine.     That  shrine  was  cold. 

The  sacred  flame  had  perished.     Dark,  cold  stains 

Were  on  the  polished  marble — stains  of  blood ; 

For  violence  had  been  there ;  and  murder  closed 

Love's  thrilling  interview.     The  heavy  print 

Of  armed  feet  was  graven  on  the  stone 

By  the  death  grapple,  and  a  broken  sword 

Glazed  fearfully  in  blood. 

There  were  two  graves 
Piled  carelessly  among  the  menial  dead, 
The  tombless  and  uneulogized  of  Rome, 
The  stained  with  crime  and  outcasts,  and  therein 
Slept  a  young  warrior,  in  whose  frozen  veins 
Patrician  blood  had  burned,  and  at  his  side 
The  beautiful  watcher  of  the  idol-shrine, 
The  fallen  Ve3tal  who  had  died  with  him. 


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